Ruin. This is Shawn Maguire and welcome to the New Vision counseling.live podcast. Episode number 11 last week we went over the podcast about six keys to an awesome to create an awesome marriage. We went over key number one, which was parties, how to say goodbye. Talked about a guy named John Gottman, who to me, he’s like the mad scientist of marriage because he has this love lab or he studies couples meticulously to identify the areas of their life that creates stress and destruction and also the key indicators for success. And out of those came some keys. And these are six of those keys that I found to be crucial and vital to implement in my own marriage and throughout the 25 plus years of Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City, Edmond, and just really in Florida around the country to be very powerful in helping couples, not just create, but also sustain and awesome marriage.
So key number two is done to the de. If I had a drum roll, I’d be hitting it right now is reunions. What does he mean reunions? Well, how are we say hello? And I want to remind you, these keys are super powerful and necessary because if you look at what most people invest in through their early years of marriage and when they have kids, it’s kids sports, it’s kids’ activities like dance, drama, ballet, soccer, football, whatever those things are. And those comprise the majority of your investment that you do consistently because they’re scheduled out through games and practices, school events, and it’s naturally scheduled because your kids are in activities. What most marriages don’t do is they don’t invest over that time of 20 to 25 depending on how many kids you have, 30 years of raising kids, they don’t invest in their marriage daily or even weekly by incorporating these ingredients.
So I’m going to give you these secret ingredients, these keys to creating and sustaining an awesome marriage that most of them only take minutes a day. Like the first key key one about how to say goodbye that only took two minutes five days a week. Cause most people go out of the home to work. So the second key is how to say hello, how to reuse, how to say, hey, how was your day? And something that’s important about this key in Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City and marriage is you’ve got to have a transition. Now most people, their husband works outside the home. For some of you it’s the woman that works outside of the home. I know I had a friend when he got married, he went to school and we study. He studied to be a doctor and you know, I studied with them and I got straight A’s when I did cause man, doctors go for it when it comes to studying eight hours a day at least.
And when he got married, he’s like, Sean, I feel like a loser because my wife makes so much more money and her job is so much more important. She was on the floor at the stock exchange and he said, I decided to work four times and he’s a mad, he stays home kind of a mother and a daddy. So wherever you’re at, whoever goes outside of the home comes back. Maybe both of you do your reunions of how you say hello or profoundly important and one of the elements is on your drive home or maybe in your driveway. You need to have a transition time of when you release the work. You, for me it’s releasing the Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City counselor, Sean, the person that assumes that burdens and helps people navigate through the difficult seasons of life as a therapist, as a leader, and I switched to dad husband mode, which they just want to be loved and heard.
They don’t need all my solutions. They don’t need that. They need a dad and a husband. So it’s really important for me emotionally to discharge all the responsibilities of the day and just really, I pray that the Lord just cleanses me through his blood, through the cross and purifies my mind in my heart and just I’m set free from all the issues that would have attached to me that day and then it empowers me to through relief. I do this mentally, I see myself succeeding through when I walk in the door, I see myself, I see the, I see chaos really. It helps me so that no matter what I walked into, my wife’s making a dinner that I can’t stand and it’s or the kids are complaining or the house is a mess or things that were supposed to be done or not. I’m able to be loving and that environment no matter what I walk into, so I’m prepared now usually that’s not what I walked into historically it was, but these days it’s not so prepared by transitions and then when you get through the door you’re going to realize that it’s up to you to be responsible to how you create an atmosphere of encouragement, of life, of love.
I have an alarm that goes off on my phone about five 30 every day. I think it is set for and it says notice and comment on three positive things when you first get home because my mind is trained to see what can be fixed and what can be improved to make life better, right. It’s part of our mission statement and I need that reminder daily comes up in my phone that what are the three positive things when I first walk in the door that I can comment on that really helps set the tone. And you know, when I first got married and had kids, uh, this is embarrassing to admit I expected them to make me feel better. So when I walked in the door and I didn’t get welcomed and stuff and my wife was cooking or she was busy doing something else, the kids are busy playing and it was just like I’ve been working all day for my family to provide for them.
And I wasn’t even welcomed. I didn’t even get a head turn. Whatever they had going on was more important than me. So I got so upset I would just come in and we’d get an argument with me or the kids about what, you know, why didn’t you do this? We talked about this before and it would just create stress. So I changed it. I owned, took me awhile, but I own, hey, it’s my responsibility to create an atmosphere of love, of life, of encouragement when I come home. So how could I do that? So I’d walk in and if it wasn’t, it wasn’t where I felt like it should be. I’d go and I’d knock on the door and sometimes I would just move from even walking in the door. I would just knock on the front door. And then I created a competition between my kids and who can get there first of, Oh, you’re number one, giving me the best hugs.
And there’s a lot of fun. And you know, I was reminded by why a man, a dog is a man’s best friend. A dog is a man’s best friend because the dog is amazing at greeting you when you walked through the door. No matter what the dog has going on in the dog, cannot wait, has probably an internal clock waiting for you. And just jobs wags the tail. Are Doug Doug’s this every day faithfully. And so if you’re the person that’s at home, when your spouse comes in, well then you want to make an effort to not be a dog, but to take the attitude of, Hey, I’m so excited to see you, so glad that you’re here. You might put some perfume on or Cologne on and be in a way that is encouraging for your spouse to come home, to be loving. Be kind of thinking about what you do now, what you naturally do when you get home.
Maybe you go change, put your clothes on and go sit and watch TV. Or maybe you go piddle in the garage, or maybe you go and take a bath. I don’t know what your rhythms are, but one of the things that can help is pretty quickly from the time you get home is here it is again the old six second kiss. Now this might require tictacs orbit gum or something that makes your best smell nice, but a six second kiss. We call the kiss the possibilities because it can be a little romantic. It could be a game changer of the atmosphere that you walk into or simply it can be a connection point of, hey, I’m home. I love you, I see you. You’re worth six seconds of my day. And it also was an intimate connection that begins to lower the barriers, lower the barriers.
Also a hug a tree. You know the oxytocins released in 20 seconds, but I would go for 30 seconds just because I’m an overachiever. Maybe you are too, and it’s a 32nd hug. Just helps you to just kind of breathe, relax into a place where your home is supposed to be your safe place. And if it’s not, this is part of your process of creating it. It’s supposed to be a place or the the cares of the world are left at the door and you come home and you create. This atmosphere is culture of love, of life, of encouragement. No matter where you’re at today, you may need to get into Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City because yours is so far out and need to help creating that atmosphere, navigating your way back. But I can assure you that this was God’s intention. And design for you to come home to something like this and then have a debriefing conversation with your spouse.
Now for my wife and I, we do a little bit of this when I first get home, but, but a lot of this happens later on in the day when the kids are kind of tuned down in there and they’re winding down, are in bed. We have a debriefing conversation if we need to have, if it’s nice outside and it’s light out, then we’ll go for a walk and we’ll debrief. And I know for me exercise and talking or a great combination because if I get stressed then I just walk faster and it’s a double benefit. And oftentimes I do walk really fast cause I need to release the stress of the day. Now this ritual of connection makes your home a place worth coming home to and makes your marriage a marriage worth protecting. And it keeps the love tank of the person outside of the home and really the person inside of the home full.
And when you’re full, then you’re not going to be looking for food elsewhere. And you know what I mean? If 50% of the people in marriages commit adultery, it’s, that’s a rough statistic. I’ve heard higher and I’ve heard lower, but 50% of the thinks a solid number. Then that means one out of two people that you know either have or will either emotionally or physically or through pornography be looking for their needs, romantic needs and relational needs. We met outside of their marriage and this is a great way to strengthen your marriage and also enjoy the process. Guys, listen, your marriage can be great. It can be amazing. There was two people in this world that decide to ceiling of how high enough, far you can go and I am not one of them. Your friends are not one of them. You and your spouse are the two people that decide that and who you bring into your life.
Now this, this takes 20 minutes, five days a week, 20 minutes, five days a week. It’s a stress reducing conversation of debriefing, getting rid of the things of your day and the spouse when you’re listening, empathize and validate, empathize and validate. Don’t be like me and give advice. Remember, calibrate. They need your love. They need your validation and for you, a lot of times women, you need to tell your guys, hey, I don’t need you to fix me. I just need you to love and listen. I’m not saying these things because I need you to fix my or my friend’s problems. I just need you to be a listening ear and guys transition to that, calibrate to that. It really helps when you’re not on the hook to make a solution and make a problem better, to fix it, to just be able to be there in a loving way, touching, massaging, things like that really help.
You know, Prom, prominent pastor at life church says they take the first 20 minutes to do this every day. Even over their kids. They do this every day. And remember, imagine if you could do this and give this gift to your spouse, what your marriage be like in a year. If you could come home and have the attitude of a dog where you’re, you’re, you’re just excited to see your spouse, whether you’re coming home or you’re the one at home, not a cat, you know, cats, they can only be bothered by you when they want you, but if you call a cat, most cats aren’t going to care. They’re just going to give you a funny look or really our cat goes the opposite direction and only wants the affection when they want the affection like at three in the morning and we are times like that. So be more the attitude of welcoming, looking for ways that you can bring life to your marriage, life to your relationship, release the energy of stress before you get home with as best you can.
You know, for me, typically within the first hour of being home, 30 minutes really, I changed clothes. I do some form of exercise. If I haven’t worked out at the gym or something, I do it at home. Even if it’s just 15 minutes of just going all out to release and then I’m way more productive and listening and being available for their emotional needs to be met. I hope this was really helpful. I know that if you make your home a place where your spouse wants to come home to and spouse, if you’re coming home, if you make your coming home a great thing for your kids and your spouse, then it will really change the atmosphere of your home. It will protect you from adultery. And the great news is it will create an amazing marriage. Think about people underestimate what they can accomplish over overestimate what they can accomplish in a month.
But we so often underestimate what through daily habits we can accomplish in a year. Think about if you invested $1,000 a month, you’d have 12 grand at the end of the year. If you’re in just invested $10 a day, how much money you have in 10 years if you put that in the stock market. So guys, if this was helpful, please go to our, uh, Facebook nutrition Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City. OKC and Instagram page is the same handle like us. Follow us because we want to create a culture, a tribe of people that just like you want God’s best for their marriage, their relationship. We want to mushroom out to show people that no matter where you’re at today, that you can change your lives, that you can impact other people for godliness, for goodness, and that you can change generations of your families by the decisions you make today. So also, if you said, Sean, that’s great, this is helpful, but I need way more and go to New Vision counseling.live. Sign up for our free guide. You’ll get one of these six keys sent to your mailbox every week. And if you want more help through counseling, we have a team of counselors that married biblical principles through cutting a Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City techniques. And we want to serve you and your story today. So give us a call, reach out. It’d be so glad that you did have a great day and I look forward to talking with you again really soon.