Why Marriages Fail Every 42 Seconds | Gabe & Rebekah Lyons

I've looked at a lot of the research over the years on life satisfaction and people saying, okay, I'm living a good life, I'm happy. And one of the single greatest factors is people feeling like they have a great marriage.

Yeah.

When I've taken care of patients over the years, what will inflame them as much as going out and eating conventional pizza or seed oils or sugar is emotional stress, going through a divorce or just being in a marital tension constantly. Yeah.

Well, we fight about everything, even like the little things, the big things, the middle things. And what is happening beneath the fight inside of us? Is there anger? Is there resentment? Is there fear? Is there anxiety? You got to acknowledge what we're feeling below that. There's all these phrases we make agreement with under our breath or in our minds, and then we slowly give way to resignation, and we slowly give way to despair. For men, I have found— or for Gabe, I'll just— sorry, I love you, but— um.

Did you know what you were signing up for when you got married? Well, I don't think most people do, uh, but today I've got Gabe and Rebecca Lyons. We're going to be talking about how to have an amazing marriage, how to have more deep intimate relationships, how to fix a broken marriage. Also talk about what women really want in relationships, what men really want in relationships, and a whole lot more.

Welcome to Dr. Josh Shakshouk Show.

Oh, it's so fun to be with you, Josh. It's I love talking to you anytime.

So, hey, we love listening and learning from you all the time. So to get to sit here with you and hang out, this is great.

Well, you know, I, I was telling someone earlier, I'm like, I love talking to Gabe and Rebecca because, uh, there, there's a lot we have in common, a lot we talked about. I mean, we start— you guys were just sharing with me you're homesteaders, 25 chickens you raised last year.

Aspiring homesteaders.

Listen, anyone that raised 25 chickens, to me, you now are, you know, homesteading material. So you're You guys are doing great things. And you have a new marriage book out, which I'm super excited about, right here, "The Fight for Us." And this is such an important topic because, I mean, I've looked at a lot of the research over the years on life satisfaction and people saying, "Okay, I'm living a good life, I'm happy." And one of the single greatest factors is people feeling like they have a great marriage or they have great relationships. And so, you know, this is obviously incredibly important for me and my show 'cause we get so much into health. And so if somebody has, you know, When I've taken care of patients over the years, what will inflame them as much as going out and eating conventional pizza or seed oils or sugar is emotional stress. Going through a divorce. Yeah. You know, losing a loved one or just being in a marital, you know, tension constantly. Conflict. Conflict. I mean, that stress just creates a cascade of inflammation, high cortisol, causes people to age more quickly.

Yeah.

And so it's a big deal for numerous reasons. You know, one thing I wanted to ask you guys to start is, when people, I'm curious for you guys, when you guys got married, What did you think marriage was then, like before you got married or right when you're getting married, versus like what do you think marriage is now, like the purpose, why you get married in the first place?

Do you want to go?

I'll embarrass myself when I say, you know, sex was a big part of thinking about what marriage was about. Yeah, I mean, I grew up in a home and a culture that was very much you wait till you're married, so, so much emphasis is put on the sexual side of the relationship. That I'm embarrassed to say. I mean, it took a few years for me to realize, like, okay, this is a part of the relationship. This isn't every— it's not how you measure the health of the relationship. Now granted, the caveat is it is a measure, it's a barometer of health in a relationship, but I had too much focus on that. And that's part of what we get into in our book The Fight for Us, is having a more transactional view of a relationship versus an intimate view, a view of really understanding how to appreciate Rebecca in a way that had nothing to do with sex and had so much to do with the beautiful person she is that God created, that I get to do life with. And that change for me changed a lot and changed a lot about, I think, the health of our marriage.

Yeah, and I think what drew us together, especially in those early days, is we would dream together. We were both very passionate about like what God might want to do and how, how could we like partner in that. And so we would just write all these, like, we didn't have any money, we'd go out for ice cream, write these little napkin dreams, we called them, like of like we just were excited about the adventure of life. And I think what we found out early on, especially even in year 1, is that that passion can go sideways. Um, and all of a sudden that passion can turn against one another. And so we talk about the fight for us because we're professionals at fighting. Like, we learned throughout our marriage that we both think our opinions on certain topics are right and yours therefore must be wrong. Um, or that we're gonna just go toe to toe until the last man is standing. And that's been hard on our cortisol. Let's be honest. Yeah. Over the years we've like, it's like, it has been, um, we have 4 dysfunctional dances we talk about in the book, the silent, intense, avoidant, and anxious. And we ask people to take an assessment to figure out that for them. But for us, we are both intense. So when you have 2 people who are both passionate, strong-willed, think their opinions are the ones that are right, um, that can create a lot of conflict. So now 28 years in, we're going, okay, that's helped round us out. That's softened the edges, like, or we would have not made it, obviously. We were also told that we were the most extremely incompatible of all of our friends because our friend took a thing when he did a marriage assessment with us when we were dating. He's like, wow, you guys are off the charts, like, incompatible. And his professor is like, I don't know about these guys. And thankfully we forgot.

We made it.

Thankfully we forgot about that until he reminded us about a month ago. We're like, oh shoot, thank God we were just blind in love. And we didn't care, but we see the aftermath of that a little bit.

Yeah, and we talk about cortisol. I mean, there's conversations we'll start having in the evening where work might come up or there's something and it enters the conversation, goes, "Let's not talk about that." 'Cause I know for me, the cortisol levels are gonna go up. And that means not good rest. That means, you know, sort of not feeling great about where we're at relationally going to bed because of intensity. And so that was something I would've never thought about, right, early in our marriage. Yeah, it's like, whatever, we'll talk about anything anytime.

Yeah, yeah.

You weren't worried about sleep when you first got married. You're like, we'll sleep when we're old.

Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Now it's, uh, it's very near the top of priorities is getting quality sleep. I'm curious for you guys, for advice for people that are maybe Gen Z and younger, um, about living together before marriage.

Yeah.

What does the data say? What does your experience say in working with, you know, thousands of kids in terms of how that works out or doesn't work out for you?

Well, the design of marriage is complete commitment, secure commitment, secure attachment forever. Yeah. And the moment you start messing with that by cohabitating, by trying to— you know, lots of people say, I want to test drive the vehicle. Well, I'm sorry, but you're not marrying a vehicle, right? You're marrying a human being with a depth of a soul and a heart, right? And somebody who's— for the guys, like, this is a family's daughter, you know? And to cherish that person starts in the dating relationship. It doesn't just start once you get married. It actually diminishes, I believe, the respect for another person to say, hey— because it's not just living together, we're going to be sleeping together, we're going to start doing life and everything together to see if this works.

Yeah.

And the moment it's an option for it not to work, there's, there's usually a good chance the breakup's gonna happen. And those, those couples don't last as long. And, and they oftentimes do break up or never get married because the bar hasn't been raised high enough.

Yeah.

And partly, I mean, we talk about a lot in the book about our origin story and looking back to move forward. And the whole point is that we all develop some form of secure or insecure attachment that first year. Of our life. And we carry that on into— if that's unhealed or unresolved in our origin story, then we carry that into our current relationship. And so if you had insecure attachment or anxious attachment as a child, and then you're like, well, I'm just not sure I'm ready to commit to somebody, because the way God defines marriage is covenant. And that means like, if we go through the vows, right, in sickness and in health, right, in plenty or want, in death, we, we don't leave each other. So we begin the book writing like the marriage vows, the traditional vows, the ones we said to one another. And we're like, man, rereading these, like, these are no joke. It's not like a, like, hey, let's just try moving in. The point of marriage was like, we're not, we're not leaving the room. Like, it can, it can get terrible, it can get hard and suffering, um, and affliction, and we're still going to stick around. And that creates such a foundation of a secure attachment, no matter what you may have been given as a child, maybe what you got, as you know, from your parents or from your siblings. But when you decide with somebody else, like, I'm before God, I'm going to give everything I have to you, and I'm going to stay, I'm not going to run. Then when the disruption comes and the eruption and like the incompatibility or the intensity in the conflict, you still have a baseline to go back to be like, well, if we're going to stick together, and it's going to stink, we might as well try to like get better. Yeah, but if it's like, no, it's too hard, I'm just gonna leave. Yeah, then what's even the, the effort of trying? I mean, the whole point of marriage counseling or counseling in general is so that we'll heal. And so sometimes the person we marry, they're a mirror. They are the closest person that sees every part of us that reflects the unhealed parts. And so I believe that God gives us each other to be a part of each other's healing journey, and we help each other in that. And if we didn't have to fight up against those the adversity of that, then we wouldn't grow and we wouldn't become more secure in the way we attach to each other.

Yeah, I think one of the, I think it's a powerful idea of like, if we, if people would wake up every morning and read their vows. I mean, that would just, you know, 'cause thinking about what I said to Chelsea, she said to me what most of the vows are that people say, it's this, you know, 'Til death do us part, committing every part of myself to you.

And it's, Yeah, that's, that's mostly, you know, rich, for poor, in sickness, in health.

And we were even saying earlier this week, like, by the way, you just said all the reasons why people get divorced in those things right there.

I know, exactly. I'm like, well, why are we now making mental health a caveat for that, right? You know, it's like, in sickness and health of every kind, rich or poor, of every kind, you know. I mean, those are big vows, um, and it's hard. And I can see why people rewrite them. They're like, I'm not sure about those, but I'm gonna come up with my own.

We were at a wedding, uh, recently where the the pastor leading it, you know, he, he had them do their vows before God, but he took out the state part. Remember?

Oh yes, my— I take you to be my wedded wife and not my lawful. It was—

I took out lawful wedded wife because it's not— this is about— it's really between you and God. It's this covenant. And, and that— my bigger point is the government's interest in marriage was always to connect parents and children. And in 1970 when no-fault divorce became a new law, which Ronald Reagan was the one who instituted that in California, it actually changed the definition of marriage. That was the first change of the definition of marriage, not 2015 and Obergefell and gay marriage. It was actually changing marriage to say this is no longer about the kids, this is about two adults entering into a contract, and if you're not happy, you can actually just easily get divorced. And that set off the craziness of divorce that has just raged out of control over the last 50 years because it became a contract. And I think that's part of what our hope is, is to just encourage couples to just remember this isn't just a— it's not about you and the spouse being happy only, right? Yeah, that's great, and, and we hope you can have an incredible marriage, but this is about attaching to generations. This is about blessing. This is about our children.

And so, and a covenant is all about commitment, that we're not leaving and a contract is to set you up to leave freely. So there are two different things. A covenant is like, I'm— no, we're staying. And a contract to help you exit.

Helps you exit. Yes. So prenups, I mean, that's a big debate. Should you do prenups? But prenups is a contract that says this is how we'll end this, you know, and you go into business, you go into business and do contracts because you're preparing for this not to work out. Yeah, it may or may not, right? Entering that idea into the beginning of marriage almost sets up the relationship and the expectation, like, yeah, this might not work. And we have found the more committed we are to say, hey, I'm not leaving, this might get hard, this has been hard, we're going to walk through some difficult things, that boundary actually helps create more freedom.

Yeah.

And brings life to the marriage in the moments when you're going to need it the most.

But we're also saying this is not easy. Like, we're not just assuming like, oh, we've never questioned anything. No, no, because like, but I do think we have to own how difficult it is.

Yeah.

To say I'm not leaving, which is why it's such an epidemic. So like, We, I have empathy for that. I have thought that, I have thought like, I don't think I can do this. This is really hard. It is what it is. Like there's all these phrases we make agreement with under our breath or in our minds. And then we slowly give way to resignation and we slowly give way to despair. So that's why we felt like we had to write this. We're like, we need to get those things that are swirling in our minds out of our bodies. And we need to get honest with these real conversations that we're thinking before we get down the road and we walk away.

Yeah. I had a friend, one of my closest friends growing up, and he dated a girl for— he met in college, dated her for like, it was either 12 or 14 years, a long time. And I asked him, I'm like, hey, why aren't you married yet? And he goes, well, you know, one thing I just been nervous about and I realized is like, I don't know that she makes me happy. That was the conversation. And I'm not even gonna— I'm gonna let you guys talk and I can share what I said afterwards. But that was the mind frame. But that's a lot of people. I think a lot of people going into marriage, they think, I'm going to get married because this person makes me happy and I'll try and make them happy.

Yeah.

Where is that thinking wrong? And why? Why should people— because there's also this whole trend going on right now of don't get married.

Oh, yeah.

You know, when people having kids way, way later in life. And anyways, I'd love to hear your—

Well, I do think if you're dating, you should enjoy each other. Like, if there's not chemistry, you're not just having fun and you can't laugh together and be goofy and you always have to have your guard up, that's probably not going to be that fun of a marriage. Like, That's good to pay attention to upfront. But if you're still questioning that 14 years in, like you either should have ended that a lot sooner and been honest with one another. Um, but to drag those things out, it's more going, what is the fear attached to that, that you can't commit or you're always waiting for someone else? It's not fair to you or the other person. So like, be honest with what your dreams and desires are upfront. But yes, you should have fun. Like you should be friends, you should laugh together and, and have laughter and happiness be a part of it. That's not the foundation, but that's certainly an element that matters.

Yeah, but, but also thinking your spouse is going to fulfill you is starting with the wrong expectation. Like, we should be fulfilled people that have meaning really outside of needing another person to make that whole. And so it's a nice concept to say, "You complete me," but I think, I think when we get down to the roots of like how we've been designed, God wants us to pursue meaning and fulfillment with him, and we get this privilege of getting to do that alongside another person, then that's going to bring joy. It's going to bring all kinds of wonderful things. But if the expectation is Rebecca is like, if she's not happy with me, then I can't go on, you know, I can't have a day that, you know, I go to work and accomplish things, then that's going to always become a problem, I think, in the relationship. Because there's a lot of days where something could be off, where we have to address that, and you can't always address it in the moment. Like, it'd be nice to But you've got to have a system and a process to heal and talk through those things, and we do that. Um, but I think the expectation that someone else is supposed to bring us our happiness sets a lot of people up for failure in marriage. Yeah.

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Yeah, you know, I'm, I'm writing a book right now, and one of the ideas is on sort of cellular health, cellular communication. One of the things I started realizing as I got into more in-depth cellular medicine is the primary thing that makes people healthy is your cells communicating properly. And it's so interesting because the first thing that I thought of is, like, if I started to sort of grasp this more and more, the cellular signaling, it was— that's just like a marriage. Yeah, it's just like any relationship. It's so foundational. What have you guys experienced in terms of the importance of communication? But maybe even more than that, how do couples better communicate? Because I think guys— I mean, I am very direct with Chelsea, and I'm very like— I'm just wired where I'm— if you guys are familiar with Enneagram, I'm an 8. I poke holes in things. I say things I don't necessarily always think. They just come out so fast and furiously and without a filter. And then Chelsea is more like, hold on to them for years, let them simmer, you know. And then finally she still won't say anything until I finally you know, pull it out of her. And, um, and so everybody's different, their communication styles. But what have you guys found? How do people learn to communicate great as a married couple?

Well, we say in the book, if you're not talking, you're not healing. And that doesn't mean if you're not fighting, you're not healing, but if you're not talking. And I think what happens is we either— again, in those four dances, you're either silent. Like, we've assessed like a lot of people already on this quiz, and they're either silent or intense, which is so interesting. Because a lot of times you get silent and you just let it simmer, simmer, simmer, and then you explode, right? Or someone's just more passionate, intense, and direct, and that kind of shuts down the one who is just wanting to de-escalate. And you might not even— it's not even escalated for you, it's like normal.

That's right.

Gabe is the same, and he doesn't understand why tone matters. I'm like, all I'm hearing is how you're saying it. I only hear how you're saying something far before my brain. And that's actually how the brain processes information. It's bottom to top, right to left. So if I feel even like I can feel frustration even if you're like, I'm not mad, I'm not mad, I'm not frustrated. And I'm like, no, no, I feel it before I'm even registering what you're saying. Because that baseline of my brainstem is hearing the intensity that there's something behind it, right? It's not like you're just commenting on the weather. There's a little edge, right? And then it gets to the top of the brain and it goes to my right and it's all my sensing, my, you know, taste, touch, see, it's all the senses. And so I'm sensing before I even register on my left brain what you cognitively said. And so that's just how we process information. That's why, people, tone does matter. Everyone's like, tone doesn't matter. Unfortunately, it does. The brain receives tone before it receives the facts. And so as a result of that, he's like, so really, I'm apologizing for my tone? I'm like, kind of. And then it does help for me to go to disarm it, go like, well, I know this wasn't your intention, but when you said it in this way with this sarcastic comment, or, you know, this is what it made me feel. Yeah. And I'm not blaming you because I'm responsible for my reactions. But at the same point, if we're both a little more honest of like, hey, maybe you didn't mean to say it this way, but when you said it, I felt small or I felt alone or I felt abandoned emotionally. That's when it gets really charged. My point is, is the more we can like de-escalate that by stepping away from the conflict, like the air in the room being as thick as it is, like just take a pause, even if it's 10, 15, come back and go, I think what was happening behind what we were saying or how we were saying it is I feel this. And so we're trying to help people communicate better through the book by the first section's all about the fight, how we fight, why we fight, and what we fight about. And then the middle section is from fighting to feeling like what is happening beneath the fight inside of us? Is there anger? Is there resentment? Is there Is there fear? Is there anxiety? You got to acknowledge what we're feeling below that before we go to Section 3, which is from feeling to healing.

Yeah. And I think for a lot of guys, they experience marriage like you and I do a bit, right? We're, we're communicating something where we're— maybe we have a strong opinion on a topic or an issue, or we disagree on something, but it's a very matter-of-fact, lawyerly argument. Yeah, it's not meant to hurt anyone.

Yeah.

And, you know, like Rebecca, when she experiences that from me many times, you know, either I don't know if I raise my voice or it feels like I'm overreacting a little bit, but it hits her in such a way that we'll ultimately end up talking about how the conversation went, not the substance of what we're talking about, which is so frustrating, right? You're like, can we just talk about the facts and then have a different conversation about how it happened so we can at least get to the base of what we were discussing. And, and I've just— it's taken me years to learn that no, actually, we're not going to get to the facts if the way in which the approach was taken, or there wasn't a sensitivity, a kindness to how I'm communicating it, it's going to be very hard for Rebecca to ever hear the facts that we're discussing. And I think that's the nature of marriage. It's the nature of men and women being different. It's the nature of— Emerson Eggerichs talks about this as trouble. Like, when God made marriage, He made trouble because he wants us to like solve the trouble. Like, that's part of the beauty of this relationship. It's hard, but it actually— it's made me into a better human being, right? To have Rebecca comment on the way that I say things. I mean, it helps me at work. Yeah, it helps me have somebody that's a mirror. Um, and so I went to my counselor once to have this conversation about, you know, my feelings. I'm trying to better understand, like what Rebecca said, we're processing in the book, from fighting to feeling. I was having a hard time accessing my heart and my emotions. I cognitively was aware of that, but I had no idea how to get there. And I remember him asking me an emotional heart question. I answered him the best I knew how, thinking he'd be satisfied with it. Then he looks at me and says, "Gabe, I feel like I'm talking to an Excel spreadsheet." To which I looked at him and said, "Well, is that a compliment? Because I love Excel. I love spreadsheets." "No, this is not a compliment. This is the problem is you give me logical answers and I don't actually get to your heart, like what you're experiencing, feeling. So for me, that journey over the last decade to better access my feelings was something Rebecca couldn't even do for me. This was a journey I've had to go on, um, and fortunately having counselors and friends who, who were always helping me work through that while also pointing me towards my relationship with Rebecca, not away from it. Yeah, sometimes counseling can pull you away from your relationship. And be very myopic and only about you healing, but not for the purpose of growth in the marriage. And for us, it was always about growth together. And that's been the most healing thing for us is Rebecca's been there, I feel like, patient. You know, she was always a bit ahead of me in accessing her feelings, but she's been a patient partner to help me navigate that and better understand, you know, what I'm feeling at times, even when I haven't had words for it. She's helped me work through it.

Yeah, I think human nature, and maybe even so more men than women, is like, you know, for me it's I wanna go in and I wanna win. Yeah. You know, versus go in and feel connected.

Yeah.

You know, and so going into these sort of, you know, discussions, arguments saying, okay, and again, so much of just life is just I need to change and switch my perspective, right? Because if I go into a conversation with Chelsea, first off, my biggest problem is I just leap, you know, it's leap without looking.

I love it.

And doing that, it's like, okay, disastrous every time versus going in and thinking about, okay, how can I create a deeper relationship with Chelsea? I know we're gonna have this conversation about our daughters. We both care deeply. So even if I don't agree with her perspective, she cares as much as I care, in a lot of cases more, with certain things that she puts a priority on. And so how can we, you know, how can we connect there? And so it's just, um, man, how, how do you How do you guys prioritize? Actually, one other question I wanted to ask: did you guys get any arguments while writing a book together?

Oh yes, we— well, we fight about everything, even like the little things, the big things, the middle things. And, um, and it's really more just opinions. We both have different opinions, and that's, as you said, and what we've learned is not right or wrong, it's different. You know, it's just— it's different.

Yeah, a lot of times it's not a moral absolute. Yeah, sure, it's a preference. It's just a preference difference. Yeah. That solves a lot of fights if you can just look at each other and go, hey, this is a preference thing. This isn't, this isn't like right or wrong.

Yeah.

And it can de-escalate.

Yeah.

Some really dumb fights.

But it is, it is a good point though to ask like, why is this so triggering? Like how I load the dishwasher, you know, or how long it takes me to order at a drive-through. Like things like that, or how to cook a proper fried egg.

Can I just, for any men that's listening or watching to this, does it drive them crazy that it takes their wife so long to order?

Yes.

Or picking one.

Yes.

I've every— I've— we've picked 10,000 restaurants and I've picked, you know, 999,000 or whatever. And then it's, you know, I'm like, hey, this is what I want.

Yeah, well, we talk about that for a minute in the book. It's like Gabe values efficiency and I—

oh, same here, very much.

I value connection. And so like, I'd like to talk to the guy at the drive-through for a minute, you know, or like, what experience of the food and the cuisine and knowing where it came from.

And, you know, it's It's, it's, I have learned, I don't have hard data on it, but it's gotta, it's gotta be like 90% of women take a bit longer in the ordering process. Yeah.

We're just not in a hurry. Um, well, we are in some things, but I do think, so the, the book, yes, we did because we both, again, um, we both are leaders in our own way and we have our own communication styles and just like how we think we ought to do it. Therefore, again, we had to kind of lay that down. It's not that I'm right or you're wrong. You've written books differently than I have. You communicate a little differently than I do. I do. And so we knew tackling the topic of marriage and co-authoring for the first time could have been a little bit of a tricky thing, but we had an editor. And then of course on our first call we fight about how we're gonna lay out the book, and I was like, this was a mistake. We're already contracted, we're already like down the road, and I was like, I don't think we can do this. And then, and that's back to your point with men and women on how either you're direct or we just like personalize it. So much. There's a side to me that I know Gabe's not trying to be rude or cruel. Like, he just wants to get the point across. And why is that so? Like, why do I feel so small? You know, like, why is that so painful sometimes to feel like I'm a little bit shut down emotionally? Why can't I stay in it a little bit and go, hey, I don't think you meant that. But there's sometimes that shame kind of impacts us differently. And so like, for, for men, I have found, or for Gabe, I'll just Sorry, I love you, but where we retreat with shame, even if we stay in the conflict. So if Gabe starts to kind of poke a jab that is, he knows, like, I don't, this is probably like a low blow, but he'll look away but keep talking. And we always joke that shame like makes you break eye contact. So you'll look down and to the left with shame, which Gabe hates that I read a book about this.

Oh my gosh. Anytime I'm not looking at her, she's like, oh, it's a shame response. I'm like, no, I don't really don't think it is.

He's like, no, it's not. Staring at the floor. I'm like, no, I think it is. But my shame response is like, I'm out, I'm leaving the room, I'm going to my closet to cry. So it's not like mine is any better, but just owning that, like, hey, something about this makes me internally feel really uncomfortable.

Yeah.

And we hate that feeling. We hate whatever is happening inside that we don't have words for yet. And of course, it would take the most important relationship in your life to trigger that in you. To bring that to the surface so that you have to confront it or deal with it or examine it. And so certain topics that we fought about for years, whether it was money, whether it was sex, whether it was how we would parent or launch our kids, we realized that there was an origin story behind all those things. Yeah. And, and in psychology, that phrase, everything hysterical is historical, which means 10% of what we're fighting about right now is about this moment and 90% is what we— our brain has put—

what happened when you were 5 years old, the bottom parts that we have avoided.

And we don't want to go back to. We have no interest in bringing them up because what it's doing to us inside.

Wow. So I had a friend of mine a couple of years ago call me and him and his wife, they're just— they'd been married like 2 years and then had one child and then they were just had another one like one year later. So 3 months, you know, and having the new child and another one and they were incredibly stressed out. And he went to a counselor and basically said, okay, listen, if you're unhappy, get a divorce.

Wow.

And I'm curious from your perspective, and, and I can tell you this from, from a medical professional, the amount of doctors that are not good at what they do are actually hurting people is really incredibly high. Yeah, it's more than 50%. So isn't that crazy? Somebody could go into a doctor and— I mean, because my belief is if somebody's going in for high blood pressure or low-grade depression and the doctor just puts them on an antidepressant or blood pressure medication And they'll every— most of the time, 95% of the time, leave it on it the rest of their life. That's not good medicine to me. That's long-term damage. But that's happening more than 50% of the time. I think the very same thing when I look at marriage counseling today. Yeah, I have so many people that have done counseling for marriage or general counseling and they're worse off for it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's happening all the time.

Okay.

That's— I mean, that's the current trend. You know, if you look at the data, I think it's like 14% of counselors are trained in marriage and family. And like 85-86% are individual therapists. So it's a special training to talk about how a marriage stays together. It's very different than one person coming in for therapy.

Now let me ask you, what percentage of people though are going to counseling because of something that happened regarding a relationship?

Oh, it is all of them, right? And they're going in to talk about their marriage. And what's happening in a lot of these cases is the therapist isn't clear that the vision here is for that individual to come back together with their spouse and to see healing there. And so we, we really encourage everybody reading our book that we're talking to, when you get counseling, make it very clear to the counselor, the goal of me getting better and healing— this is what I experienced with mine— is that my wife and I would actually experience more healing, and then we'd come together because of this counseling.

Yeah.

Well, and because of client confidentiality, you could have a counselor that never meets your spouse, right, that never knows the other side of the story. And as we know, every conflict has his version, my version, and objective reality, because we're all bringing our bent. What we hear, whether or not it was what was said, we hear it different than even the way in which it was said. Because whatever we're doing that's stepping on each other's toes is hitting our pressure points, right? The places that are tender, that were never really healed. And as a result, it's a trigger. And triggering is— it takes two people to fight. It takes two people to have dysfunction. It takes two people to get in this codependent loop. And so yes, I do think clinicians are trying to be helpful in like, what's your codependency? But without the full story, you can only do so much. Yeah. And, and I think we encourage people first, go to someone. If you're a Christian and you want, you wanna stay together, or at least you have a desire, then, then make sure you, you let them know that upfront that you wanna repair the relationship because just walking away because you're not happy, I mean, you're wherever you go, there you are. Whatever's unresolved in this marriage, you're going to take into the next. Yeah, whatever relational tear or insecure attachment, again, doesn't go away. And so because we're bringing these things to the surface in each other, we then have a choice. Do we run from one another, or do we turn toward each other? And I think a lot of marriages without somebody in their corner cheering them on, who are their peers, their friends, not just someone you're paying to listen to you as a counselor, but someone who's in your life and knows both you and your spouse and says, hey, I noticed when we were like hanging out, like, you guys keep digging on each other. Like, what's going on? Like, maybe the guys talk to the husband or the girls talk to the wife, and they feel less alone or isolated maybe in that conflict. They feel loved. And instead of just going to like he said, she said, be like, we love you guys together. Like, if you guys ever want to talk, we're here. I mean, Gabe and I have done that for So many of our friends, and so many of our friends have done that for us in certain seasons. When we had a special needs child, 3 years in, we were in our mid-20s with a boy with Down syndrome that we did not know was coming until 6 hours after he was born. We had no idea that was his diagnosis. And so at that point, even special needs parents, that first year of parenting, you know, the divorce rate is sky high. But if they can make it that first 12 months, then the trajectory of them working together is going be strong. And so thankfully, we didn't like isolate in our pain or in our, um, confusion or our loss of whatever that was. We turned toward each other, and we look at it now and go, yeah, that was really hard, but it actually fortified our marriage in so many ways because we're both— that we're like, we don't know what we're doing. Yeah, he was failure to thrive. He's in the NICU. He's not— he's on a feeding tube and breathing tube, and we're just fighting for him to live.

Yeah.

And so even though we were 25 and 26, not knowing anything about marriage— I mean, we're still going to be fighting for 2 more decades— we at least do that. We couldn't do this without each other. Yeah. And so it created this fortified bond that's like, hey, we're going to turn toward each other when things get hard.

Yeah. Wow. So what does Jesus say about divorce?

Jesus doesn't like divorce. He permits in the New Testament, you know, in a passage in Matthew, he basically says, you know, divorce was permitted through Moses because of your own stubbornness, right? It was— it wasn't because this was my design. It's not what I wanted for marriage, but because of human activity and the ways in which you guys function in relationships in dysfunctional ways, I've permitted it at times. We also know in the Old Testament— he's talking about Israel, so it's a unique— it's not the same as a marriage, but it says God hates divorce. So we know because of covenant that God loves covenant. He loves covenant commitment. He doesn't want— covenants should never be broken.

Broken.

Yeah, in his view, they're not broken. And so even later in the New Testament, you see the writers, you know, Paul, when he speaks of marriage, you know, there's a big commitment to staying married, that this isn't something that just you do away with because you feel like things aren't going well. Um, yeah, so I think, I think when we look through the lens of, of biblical scripture and we look through the way Jesus cares about marriage and says, look, I put I put man and woman together from the beginning, like this is the core of how I was going to build family, build civilization, create a flourishing world. You just see that marriage is held up very highly, and God doesn't want us to go through that type of rupture in the marriage relationship.

Yeah, and there's specific passages on how to treat one another in marriage in the New Testament, whether it's Ephesians or 1 Peter. And it's all, it's all talking about because Jesus first humbled himself and gave us this freedom to live more like him, then— and that our relationship as a married couple is supposed to reflect Jesus' relationship with the church. It's supposed to be an embodiment of that same kind of covenant, like, "Not going anywhere. I'm going to lay down my life for you." And the husband is supposed to love the wife in the same way. Because we're called to that, then that means we— marriage is about constantly humbling yourself, constantly seeking to serve one another. Seeking to understand one another. I mean, even 1 Peter is like, love your wife and listen, love her in an understanding way, right? Or your prayers are hindered. And that means Gabe seeks to understand me in ways that sometimes he's like, I can't figure women out, but I'm gonna try. I'm gonna be curious. I'm gonna ask questions. In the same way, I'm supposed to submit in a way that is honoring and humbling myself because I know that God has given him to me as a husband, to my children as a father. God always promised generational blessing through Abraham. Through generations that would love God. And so family means a lot to God, and the flourishing of family means a lot to God. That's how— why we're all here. Um, but also Jesus comes from a line of really broken marriages. So it's not saying that because we're a mess, like, we're, we're disqualified. It just says we've got to humble ourselves and, and forgive and ask for forgiveness and apologize. And if that's what marriage has turned into for too, for us, that we're like apologizing first. Like, that's who wins. Like, that's our joke now. Like, whoever apologizes first wins, because if you need to win, you can apologize first. Yeah, but it— the point is repair. It's not that we're not selfish. Yes, we understand there's times where— but if we can come back and humble ourselves and our kids get to see that, then what we have to offer them is an honest expression. Like, we're not perfect, we don't struggle, but because of God, he continues to humble us to one another. We, and we heal, and now we're stronger for it.

What is something Gabe practically does that other men could do that is that sacrificial thing that he's called to do biblically for you?

Yeah, I think that passage in 1 Peter means a lot to me because it says, "Live with your wife in an understanding way." And when Gabe started noticing things that he admired in me and calling them out, just in the same way that I do for him, like if we pay attention to and observe and name, it's not just to notice and like, think it internally. But just like men need affirmation in the love languages, women do too. And I think sometimes we're like, I don't need that. I just need service, or I need gifts or whatever. But for Gabe to go like, hey, when you do that, like, I love the way you are so tender with the kids, or you really went out of your way to make sure you were talking to that person and praying with that person, or you've been working really hard this weekend on that paper because I'm in grad school right now. You know, like whatever it is, he's just calling it— the attention to it. Saying he sees me, saying he admires that in me or respects that in me in the same way I need to do that for him. Like that, I feel heard, you know, I feel seen. And I think our deepest longing, whether it's male or female, is to be seen and known and loved in the absence of shame. So the more that we can notice, but not just internalize, but name, say it out loud, affirm, then we're like, huh, thanks, babe. I didn't even know you noticed that.

That was the thing for me is I noticed and thought about, I think a lot of us as men, see what our wives are doing and we're thankful, but we don't always name it. Yeah, I think, I think that taking that step to just say, I'm thinking this, why don't I just say it? Uh, and, and to say it and to see what, how much it means to her to hear those words, just the same way I need her words of affirmation and her support and encouragement and belief. Uh, I think I have seen for her, you know, that, that really bring out, you know, yeah, her eyes brighten. When she knows that her husband's paying attention to the things she's giving a lot of her time and energy to and appreciating it.

Well, because I don't even know that I recognize it. But when he recognizes it and says it, I'm like, wow, that's really sweet. Like, that's significant that I don't even always think about it as sacrificial. But you observe it's a part of cherishing, I think. I think that's a definition of cherishing. Like, I'm watching you engage and I love it and I want to make sure I tell you.

I'm interested for you guys because I know you guys have been involved, um, in Keep Up with Politics and some of those things as well. And one of the things I've seen, and this is not necessarily a political question at all, but it is, you know, that there are a lot of different— I think there are some different views by people that are atheists, people that are Christian, even within Christianity, in terms of what the role of the husband is, what the role of the wife is, especially when you start having kids. You know, I cover on this podcast, we, um, covered a topic about daycare. And just statistically, I actually got a lot of— it's probably my most backlash of any episode I've done where I just only covered stats in order to not get backlash, and I did anyways. Just because daycare for young kids, really 0 to 3 years old, was very hard on, on kids in terms of ADHD and a number of things. But, but, you know, I think, I think that there are, um, there's a lot of— I mean, today maybe, maybe more. Well, I don't want to say more than ever in history, but I think culturally there's a lot. There's so many women working, you know, like my grandmother out of World War II. She worked at her— her and my grandfather both worked at B.F. Goodrich Tires for like 50 years each. I mean, literally from like 18 years old to— for a very long time. And, and I think there's, you know, there's this whole trad white movement where it's like, I think some of their belief is women really shouldn't work outside of the home. Like, some of them, I'm saying the more extreme ones. And I, I kind of go to Proverbs 31 and thinking about what, you know, what, uh, you know, what a woman is called to do. But I'd love to hear from you guys in terms of like, like, there are so— I see this so often today. Like, we had this a lot at one of my companies where a lot of the women worked and the, in the, in the, the men stayed home and watched the kids. And this— we're in a sort of different age today where sometimes that's gratified, sometimes it's looked down upon. What's the biblical opinion? What's your opinion on how to create that right balance for what the woman does, what the man does, and what— and how to best, you know, take care of the kids in that environment?

Well, we, we believe each of us has divine assignments and callings from God, and that plays out as marriage partners, as a husband, as a wife, as a mother, as a father. But it also, as Proverbs 31 talks about, you know, that the woman of Proverbs 31, she's industrious. I mean, she's out in the field, she's working, she's going to the market, she's resourceful. Yeah, I see Rebecca a lot that way. Exactly. But there's also seasons to how to navigate that as a couple. And certainly our culture, to your point, it's almost impossible for both not to work in order to have an income to afford the kind of things that we're told we need to afford, right? To have a comfortable life.

Yeah.

To have enough money to live. And so certainly a lot of couples quickly move in that direction these days. But I think what Rebecca and I learned was there were seasons to that, and we needed to take care of those seasons carefully and look at every season a little bit differently versus just saying, oh, this is how every couple should do it all the time.

Yeah, our role is partners both inside and outside the home. So if I'm called to motherhood because we have kids, he's just as much called to fatherhood. Yeah, right. If we're both called to like run on mission, you know, in whatever vocational pursuit we're having, because we believe that God has entrusted that to us and we wanna steward it well, then I do that and he does that. And sometimes we do like gas and brake on how we do that with parenting. Um, poverty creates a lot of dual income, um, households, right? So my parents were both school teachers my whole life. Yeah. My mom worked and she was in the school as a teacher every year of my whole childhood. And so I saw two working parents, but my mom got to be home with me in the summers when I was home and over the winter. So I kind of got the best of both. I watched them partner, you know, vocationally, both inside and outside the home. But what I do think is interesting in the first century, where we're reading a lot of the scriptures on how marriages ought to work, you know, work was at home. I mean, everything was—

Yes, so much.

Yeah, everything was in the field, right? And that was your business. Like, that was your income, that was your livelihood. And the scriptures show women working with men, like gathering grain or like hiring servants or having people help. So yes, work now looks a little different. It's like your home, isn't an agrarian lifestyle like it was up to 100 years ago. So that's a little interesting.

That's true. But a lot of times the kids were working once they got the right age.

Yeah, at 12 you're like, you're on a plow or something, right? You're doing something. So even that family economy in the, in the, in the first century is— I'm seeing a little bit of a resurgence of that now in some form of homesteading, or people trying to do a little bit more with the land. And I think it's interesting. Yeah, because there is something to to us partnering in the work we do, even like on our little plot of land at home, right? But then we're also going, but God has entrusted us to write in this season, so we're going to write about some stuff, right? Or we might go teach on those things, and we might take turns who goes. As long as we're not abandoning family, whether it's like, I'm just running over here and I'm, you know, I hope you're okay with it. We make decisions together. We make even like the rhythms that we say yes or no to together. Um, how we spend time with the kids and proactively plan those things. We just have to be really intentional and deliberate about that.

Our calendar's insane in terms of projecting, time blocking, being sure that our top priorities— which, our top priority is one another. Yeah. Our second priority is our children and our family time, and then work comes third or fourth after— yeah, community and faith. Yeah. Physical health. Yeah. So for a lot of people, work is number one. Yeah. How am I— you know, everything's about that job. Yeah. And every other part of their life starts to, to play second, third, fourth priority. And I think we've been— it's been a privilege to be able to do that, but it hasn't always been easy to do that. It's not because we earned a lot of money when we first started making those decisions. It's because we knew that this was going to have to be core for us to last. We're gonna have to prioritize our relationship, which means you know, date nights. It means getting away as much as, you know, you know, probably once a quarter, trying to get like one night away, which for some couples it's like, that's crazy, we haven't had a night away in 5 years. Yeah, well, I don't know how you're still married because getting, getting time away with each other—

statement right there, I don't know how you're still married.

That's great.

But, but, you know, we've always tried to prioritize that time.

Yeah.

So that our marriage becomes a focal point, a lens through which we're going to look at all of life. And the big decisions we're going to make. And it gives us the time and space and margin away from the daily responsibility and the stressors that we're all living under to at least reflect and go, hey, are we on the right trajectory here? Are there any adjustments that need to be made with our time, our energy, our work?

Yeah.

What we're saying yes to, how we're doing community. I mean, those are big conversations that in the rat race of life often don't get time.

Yeah. Well, and when you say our marriage is first priority and our kids are second priority, I'm already going to go respond to the women, the women who are going to hear And what Gabe means by that, I'm gonna translate, is that when our kids see our marriage as a secure space for them, that like mom and dad are okay, then our kids feel the safety and security in our home. It's wild how even a newborn can recoil when there's tension and friction in the air. This is, our kids, we think they're so resilient and nothing matters. No, they are sponges and they're absorbing the barometer, the atmosphere in the home, right? Like, we always joke, we have two kiddos with Down syndrome. Our oldest is our firstborn, I already talked about, but then we adopted a little girl, Joy, from China 8 years ago, who's now 11. And, um, while their verbal is limited— they're, they're verbal, but it's limited in understanding every word we're saying— they 100% can tell when there's friction with David and I.

Yeah.

And they'll start to kind of like, they'll take it in and they'll respond. And then sometimes she'll go, no, Daddy, that's not nice, you know, talking like that, Daddy. But it's It's good, but like our kids, I mean, they read it. And so, the point is like our— the health of our marriage is going to impact greatly the security of our kids.

Yeah.

And so, that's why it's a priority. If they understand that mom and dad are good, and there's an ease, and there's a resting peace in our home, then they're going to feel the freedom to just kind of crawl up on our laps and feel deeply secure. And so, that's the impact of a stable marriage on parenting.

I love it. Okay, I got a few rapid quiet fire questions here to wrap us up from each of you. Okay, what is one habit that people can implement to reignite their marriage?

Okay, first 15 minutes a day after you come home from a busy day, whether you're working outside or inside the home, you shut the door, and you just catch up and the kids are okay. They know mom and dad are just having a few moments. It's good for them to see that mom and dad are taking time. And it's more— it doesn't have to be big emotional things. It was just like, what was your highs or lows? What, what impact you— what are you excited about? What are you any frustrations, like just bearing each other's like burdens, hearing a little bit of a— not just calendar, but like a heart level, like how are you doing? Um, I think that's really helpful. And if you just do a short amount, then you can maintain it.

That's correct. An 8-second hug every day, so good. If you do the hug, the dopamine, that oxytocin, that's so good. You really feel connected. Um, there'll be times Rebecca's hard at work on her laptop and I'll be like, come here, give me a hug, you know, and it just breaks everything. And so be intentional about that.

We found the same one. That's probably Chelsea and I you know. Yeah, go to— all right, one way to fight for your spouse this week.

Um, take, take a bit of the burden off of whatever load that they're carrying this week. Like, you know what they're under. Rebecca, it's paper she's writing, so I need to help cook some of the meals and make that a little bit easier this week so the load's lighter. Fold the laundry, do, do the dishes. Uh, think about being considerate of what would lighten the load for the person person you're married to.

Yeah, and I think for the wife who can contain a bunch of facts and a bunch of details and responsibilities in her head, like, let those go. Go out for a walk with your spouse. Go sit on the porch, have a cup of coffee. Like, don't have anything productive in front of you for a little bit and get that time together.

In a similar vein, asking it the opposite way, so what is something that a guy could go and do for their wife this week that would surprise her and just wow her?

Uh, figure out a dinner plan. You don't have to make it from scratch, but just figure out a dinner plan, even if you bring it home with some just— she's off. She's just off, you know, duty tonight for dinner.

That's good. Uh, send your husband a sexy text and tell him you can't wait for him to get home. There we go. That'll make his day.

That's so good. Well, thanks for coming on, guys. I want to encourage everybody to check out the new book, The Fight for Us. Um, and man, this is such an important book. There are so many people I know who, um, want to have a deeper connection to their marriage. And listen, this is for you. It's also for your kids. And so I think about myself growing up. One of the most meaningful things for me is that my parents, uh, fought actually a fair amount, but they stayed together. They worked through it. And the fact me being able to see them work through their differences impacted me as a person so much. It was just so powerful. So again, uh, one of the reasons why I, uh, again, love this book is I trust you guys so much. You guys are great friends of Chelsea and I. And so again, The Fight for Us, want to encourage you guys to check it out, bookstores nationwide, amazon.com. And just want to say, hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we dive deep into the science and principles behind and how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. If you're watching on YouTube, give us a comment. Let us know what was your single biggest takeaway from some of the wisdom that Gabe and Rebecca shared with us today. And if you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe and share. There are millions of people that think marriage is about making each other happy. That's part of it. But more than that, it's about having a deep divine connection, making each other better as well. So I hope, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I'll see you next week. Sweet.