The VowsToKeep Marriage Podcast

Exposing the Lies That Damage Marriages :: [Ep. 288]

• David & Tracy Sellars • Episode 288

Share episode

Today we explore destructive myths that sabotage marriages, examining how these embedded beliefs create barriers to healthy relationships and spiritual growth.

We will talk about the following:

• Common marriage myths prevent capable Christians from breaking through barriers to reach the next level
• Myths create beliefs about our spouse, our future, and justifications for ungodly choices
• Every wrong action starts by believing a lie - what we think in our mind creates our reality
• When we make children the center of our universe, we raise entitled kids unprepared for reality
• The myth "stick it out until kids leave" ignores how damaging living in an unhealthy marriage is for children
• God's purpose for marriage goes beyond child-rearing or future pleasure in retirement years
• A strong marriage models Christ's love and provides the security children truly need
• Don't just survive in your marriage - choose to thrive by serving Christ together
• Breaking generational curses means showing children how to navigate marital challenges with the hope found in Jesus

We pray you are helped and encouraged today!


Support the show

For episode transcripts, click HERE.

For more marriage encouragement, visit: www.VowsToKeep.com | V2K Blog | Marriage Counseling | Insta | FB

Apple Podcast listener? Would you consider leaving us a review, as this helps more couple's to find our resources?! Leave your review HERE.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. The mission of Vows to Keep is to help couples develop a biblically healthy marriage through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. They desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

Speaker 2:

We are David and Tracy Sellers and, like you, we've made vows to keep.

Speaker 3:

Is it possible that there are basic myths and lies that are ruining your life, holding back your marriage or justifying an unhappy and unfulfilled union? It's the little things that we can believe that go a long ways in derailing our success. So why do capable Christians fail to break through the barriers that most of the common myths seem to throw at us, Things that stop our marriage from going to the next level? Because, if we're not careful, our lives become dictated by ideas that sound so convincing at some level but are really absolute myths.

Speaker 2:

Lies from a culture, myths repeated from previous generations, worldly wisdom wrapped up in convincing conversation. It seems right at the time. Our nation's teens with cell phones and social media. It's the fear of missing out that they can consume what's out there for them, and pretty soon our kids are influenced into the cultural norm that glorifies being busy and checking social media and email constantly. Many of us parents suffer from this as well. With the older generations, it's an addiction to catching the news every day. Not realizing it too has become a doomsday message designed to draw eyeballs and sell ads.

Speaker 3:

So we don't pay attention to that still small voice inside that's telling you that a different life is actually possible. The truth is, there can actually be a lot of joy in missing out, because it means we can put our focus where it needs to be. What if we could discover that? What if the things that controlled us didn't? We can be our own worst enemies and believe the myths, those lies that ruin our marriage and even our lives. That voice we hear in our head recites some pretty interesting narratives. So often and so frequently we begin to believe these lies. These turn into beliefs about our spouse, about our future and the justification we need in general to make some very ungodly choices. Myths believed begin to create our reality and I've said this very often in our counseling meetings with couples Every wrong action starts by believing a lie. What we think in our own mind creates a reality.

Speaker 2:

In our Christian walk, in our married life, it's often easier to live out a victim mentality, which is a myth that you can't do anything about the cards you've been dealt. Whatever you've got is all you'll ever have. You really have no options left except terrible ones, and everybody knows it. The stories we tell often start out as a protection, a justification for why we're forced into doing what we're doing. Sure, maybe it's a sin, but what other choice do I have? Have you ever been there? Sure, maybe it's a sin, but what other choice do I have? Have you ever been there?

Speaker 2:

Myths make us feel better about little incremental bad choices along the way, but then they spiral into excuses and beliefs that end up consuming us, end up ruining us. We're in this series right now about marriage myths. This is part four, and in part one we tackled the myth my marriage should make me happy. I bet you've thought that at some point. I know I have. Then the myth marriage takes all the fun out of a relationship. We addressed the cultural myth that marriage is becoming an outdated institution.

Speaker 3:

And in the second broadcast we considered the myth what if I married the wrong person? I think I have. What do I do now? Then we spoke truth against the common marriage myth that some marriages are just beyond repair, they can't be fixed.

Speaker 2:

Thankfully, that's not true, and you can always go back and listen to these on our website, vowstokeepcom. In last week's broadcast, we covered the myth that marriage should be 50-50, right, and the self-condemning myth that if I marry the right person, I should always feel in love with them. We ended addressing the myth that we shouldn't ever fight in front of our kids. Right, my spouse and I should put on a good face in front of them, and we address that myth with truth. How will we teach our kids how to deal with anger and strife that they're going to encounter in their life? Well, the answer is by showing them a godly response in our marital strife. How will they learn what it looks like to seek forgiveness in our marital strife? How will they learn what it looks like to seek forgiveness? By watching our disagreements end that way between the two of us.

Speaker 2:

We can't fake a healthy marriage. We have to show them how to do the tough work as an agent of Christ in a relationship that sees all of who I am and all of my sin and all of my ugliness. Kids brought into a turmoil. Marriage do pay a price and since we're all sinners married to a sinner, that leads us to the next marriage myth. I've heard this from many moms. They've got the frailty of their kids often on their mind and when the kids are little, hey, they're crying. They can't change their own diapers, they can't feed themselves it's on me but they're looking at their husband and saying he's not only inconsiderate and demanding, he's perfectly capable of taking care of himself. So here's the myth.

Speaker 3:

Our kids need to come first.

Speaker 2:

You bet Moms believe our noble cause is to do anything for our kids. Drop everything to help them.

Speaker 3:

And it's commonplace for dads to jump on with this bandwagon as well. We work to provide for our kids. Hey, she's 12 now she needs her own cell phone. It's money we don't have, but it's worth it. He wants to be in soccer and band and football and track. It's going to stretch my wife and I into separate schedules but it's what we need to do. It's a sacrifice worth making.

Speaker 3:

What is the truth that God has asked of us as parents? We do have a role to play. God says all souls are his, the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son. We can find that in Ezekiel 18. And in Psalm 24, god reminds us that the earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants belong to the Lord. Well, guess what? It's so easy for us, as parents, to lose sight of that when we think about our kids. Because we think about them as being our kids, we believe that their success is only as much as you or I will give to them. We have to not let this marriage myth infect our marriages. Our children are gods. You, as parents, you're just their stewards. You're to be making them into Christ followers, not self-seekers. You're to be helping them to see their role as servants in order to become servants of Christ, and we do this by modeling it.

Speaker 2:

But not modeling it by serving them to the point that they're top priority, rather by serving Christ. So how will you do that? Well, we have to prepare to let go as our children grow, and I'm really not even talking about physical growth here, because we're stewards. We don't own our children. We've got this temporary responsibility for their long term capability as Christians, as Christ followers, as kingdom builders.

Speaker 2:

I'm reminded of the parable of the talents, David. We have a duty to steward what we don't own, and that includes our kids. As a parent, we've got the responsibility to oversee their spiritual growth, their spiritual education, discipling them that's true parenting, not just ferrying them around a soccer practice. Ephesians 6 talks a lot about marriage and parenting, and it says this in verse 4, to nurture our children in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. It's humbling to think about this, but we are a child's first witness to the gospel. Sharing Jesus is our most important duty. Proverbs 22, 6 says train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Speaker 3:

And that means you have a responsibility to disciple your kids, especially where their demands push your family out of God's priority order for your lives. That means saying no to things that maybe aren't wrong but would change the family dynamic from serving God and then serving your marriage and then your family, and getting that out of that order. And I think many parents fear the tantrums of their kids. They fear the outbursts of their teens. They're just trying to survive as parents by giving in to the demands of our culture and our kids.

Speaker 3:

And in today's world that seems loving to train a child. We must be willing to lovingly correct our kids, to teach them God's priorities for their life. We've got to show them God's priority in our lives. It's generally the goal of most parents to please their kids and that equates to happiness in their minds. But history shows us that it's a short-term happiness that comes at a long-term cost. I know it can be hard to know where that line is, but if we would just invest more heavily in training, at least as much as we do in pleasing them, I can't imagine where the next generation could go for the kingdom of Christ.

Speaker 2:

And training requires discipline. And discipline isn't just saying no, and it's not about venting your frustration, your wrath, when you've just had it with their demands. This is actually where a lot of us parents sin in the process. Let me read from Hebrews, chapter 12, starting in verse 5, that talks about godly discipline to us as his children, and then parents, how we discipline our kiddos.

Speaker 2:

God's word says and have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, my child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline and don't give up when he corrects you. I bet you felt God's correction, but in the end you were better for it, for the Lord disciplines those he loves. The next verse says and he punishes each one he accepts as a child. As you endure this divine discipline, god's word says remember that God is treating you as his own children.

Speaker 2:

Who ever heard of a child who was never disciplined by its father? If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and not really his children at all. Hebrews 12 9 goes on to say Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits and live forever. Verse 10 says For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how, but God's discipline is always good for us so that we might share in His holiness. No discipline is enjoyable. While it's happening it's painful, but afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.

Speaker 3:

Discipline isn't checking a box. It needs to be godly. To be effective, discipline needs to start with identifying the sin. It's not about the Legos or the cell phone. Look at what's at the root and make sure that you can back that up with scripture. Then comes assigning punishment that brings them to repentance, and this is where a mom and a dad need to work together to make sure that we hit that mark consistently. The goal is that repentance is gonna spur them onto seeking forgiveness with God and whomever else they've offended. Then we need to reinforce that God grants forgiveness and in that God gives grace. They need to know that they are loved, no matter what. Then the matter is finished. No need to be brought up again. The goal is to live out Galatians 6.1. It says, brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently, but watch yourselves or you may be tempted.

Speaker 2:

In today's society, we've done a good job of raising what I would call little mini princes and princesses. People who are the center of our universe, people who can make almost any request and their wish is granted. We make our kids sometimes an idol, something that we put over God in our lives and we don't even realize it, and people who are used to being served, whose demands are constantly met those kiddos, well, they carry that same thought into their life after they leave our house. They also have the unfortunate reality check hit them when they find, hey, the world doesn't serve me like my parents did. That doesn't make your kids stop having high expectations, though, and constant disappointment is going to come with it. It's why so many kids nowadays never want to leave the nest.

Speaker 3:

When we believe the myth, when we put our kids ahead of our marriages, we make self-centered, self-seeking little messiahs out of our kids and our marriages fail to boot. And going back to Ephesians 6, let me read the rest of that it says. Let me tell you something Kids become adults full of wrath when we have set them up for long-term failure. The passage continues but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. I want to shift gears to our final myth, but before I do, let me close out this topic with some thoughts on how we can prevent being on the wrong side of Colossians 3.21. It says fathers, don't provoke your children so that they won't be discouraged. I've met many a wife and many a husband who said man, there is no way I want to repeat the pain that my parents created in my life. We don't realize how much trouble we create being even 10 or 15 degrees off of what God desires in our marriage. It can have massive impacts.

Speaker 2:

Now, as a kid, it's discouraging to be told you need to eat your broccoli. Well, it's discouraging as a parent to back it up. But if your kids find your words negotiable, they will find God's word negotiable as well. Are you preparing them to respect? Are you preparing them to serve? Are you preparing them to make Jesus Christ the center of their universe forever? Yes, kids are needy. God made them that way. Yes, you should be a great parent, be there for them, spend time with them. Don't live out the myth, though, that so many well-intentioned parents do when they replace marriage with parenthood. Little by little, keeping God first, your marriage second, your family third, and so on, keeps a child on the right long-term track. A secure home built on God protects and models a future for our kids to emulate.

Speaker 3:

Our last marriage. Myth is that old adage that we may be miserable with each other, but we need to stick it out till the kids are gone. So many times you see couples living in this lie. We will endure the pain of our marriage long enough at least to see the kids off to college. And at that point when the last kid leaves, all bets are off and the world actually makes this sound pretty noble, Like, okay, suck it up, Suffer for the sake of your kids. It's only for a season and we're convinced that this is right because there's such an emotional effect of divorce on young children. It's clear Divorce upends a kid's world, so it seems to make sense. Hang on till they're older and you know what my parents divorced a few years after I left the home. My are older and you know what my parents divorced a few years after I left the home. My question is this how has 18 or 20 years living in a home with a broken marriage shaped your kids' view of what life and marriage should look like?

Speaker 2:

Will we do more damage by divorcing now or more damage by staying together and being a train wreck of a marriage? Well, that's the core of this myth. We are locked into these two paths.

Speaker 3:

And, it seems, when we as Vows to Keep gets involved, one spouse is reaching out contemplating this question and the other, empty nester, is far less conscientious. Their head is in the sand, and it's after this last kid moves out that they suddenly come face to face with the intimidating thought of life with a spouse that they've grown far apart from.

Speaker 2:

Maybe you're listening and you're not to this stage, but you might be motivated by a closely related myth that we need a strong marriage during the child rearing years because one day, hey, those kids are going to be gone.

Speaker 3:

It's as if your marriage now it's terrible, but it's terrible, but it's the necessary proving grounds during these grueling years of raising kids so that we can be sure that we will have a marriage when all the kids are grown and they've all flown the coop.

Speaker 2:

Both of these models of operations suffer from the same problem. God's reasons to address your marriage go way beyond being in love when the kids are gone. That is going to be a nice bonus, for sure. It's going to be the result of doing it God's way, though, in the first place.

Speaker 3:

Here's the deal when we make our purpose for marriage about our kids, we fail them and us. When we make our purpose about our future pleasure in the retirement years, we fail us and God too. Ignoring our purpose means we're neglecting God's kingdom with our lives and our collective spiritual gifts. When you're just surviving, you're ignoring the assets that have been given to you. God gave you those assets for a purpose his purpose, not yours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we are each given individual gifts and talents from God, but they are to be used in coordination together, as a couple.

Speaker 3:

Jesus said that the most important commandments are to love God and love others, but when we neglect our purpose, chances are we aren't loving God or using our gifts to love others, and in no place is this more clear to those people that are in your circle than to your immediate family members.

Speaker 2:

If that's true, your kids are going to see a love that isn't real when it comes to your spouse. Rather than considering ending your marriage or just sticking it out, you can restore your marriage. God can restore your marriage.

Speaker 3:

Colossians 3.23 tells us whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters. So many of us see our marriage in this position where we're hanging onto it to please our kids, to serve our kids. What would it mean to make your marriage second to God and before your kids? What would it mean not to tough it out for a weak, half-hearted purpose but rather pivot to a marriage investment done for the Lord himself? It's easy to be led astray when our purpose is built on quicksand. Our faith and our identity should never be built on temporal things like people that live in our home, whether it's your kids or these visions of easy street time when you get older. We can so easily mistake the truth when we're motivated by things outside the realm of God.

Speaker 2:

When we ignore our purpose and who we are serving. Our identity suffers. Colossians 3.23 tells us to work within our marriage as if the Lord was right there. It's because he is. But that's followed by verse 24 that says since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward, it is the Lord Christ you are serving. What if you love someone, your spouse for example, who didn't deserve it? What if your reward wasn't actually even visible this side of heaven? What if you did? You modeled Colossians 3, 23 and 24 and your kids saw it. Others admired your love for your spouse enough to ask why did you do that?

Speaker 3:

What a perfect picture of Jesus and what a perfect opportunity to talk about it. This is only a perspective away from where you are right now. You can suffer in silence of a weak-hearted purpose, or you can lean into your spouse and take on God's purpose for your life and your marriage and ultimately build a legacy. Proverbs 13, 22 says a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. So many people think about money when they hear this, but what if your inheritance to your kids' kids was a marriage lived to please the Lord? God does have a purpose for your marriage, one that's about him and one that shapes the generations to come. Not because you're two perfect people living in a perfect marriage, but because you're two flawed people who actually claim Christ as Savior and show it. We aren't in a position of tolerating each other, any more than Christ is in a position of tolerating you or I. He loves us. What if you showed your kids not that they were the reason to stay married, but that God was? What if you were transparent enough to seek help, not to just survive but to thrive?

Speaker 3:

The most difficult part of a difficult marriage is the ways we become experts at minimizing, rationalizing and then pretending when the reality should force us as professing Christians, to take some biblically supported actions, but we don't. We believe the lies, and eventually we notice sarcasm in many of our interactions with each other, and a passive neglect becomes the mode of choice. You choose to be elsewhere during your free time. Your work life becomes your acceptable escape, so you spend too much time there. You self-medicate by controlling what you can when you're at home to create a safe space for yourself and your kids to live in.

Speaker 3:

This lie. You focus on the kids and their activities. To create a safe space for yourself and your kids to live in. This lie. You focus on the kids and their activities, or you always have the kids with you to avoid focused alone time with your husband or your wife. You go to bed significantly earlier or later than your wife to avoid intimacy. You cultivate an environment of constant subconscious distance. You live separate lives, but together, and the kids feel all this. They just don't know what it is. What it becomes, though, is their understanding of how to experience and express love when the kids leave.

Speaker 2:

it's not time to go self-serve. What a marriage myth that is. You should be prepared for an increase in serving God in your upcoming empty nest. It's not a season of life for it to finally be all about you.

Speaker 3:

Let your kids see redemption now, and then let them see a legacy, as two Christian parents show that our lives are ultimately meant to serve Christ throughout all of our days.

Speaker 2:

Don't let your love be temporary. Don't let your marriage be on the chopping block.

Speaker 3:

Make the investment and, in doing so, gain the wisdom that comes with age. Gain what's valuable in living out faith and making disciples of your grandchildren. Build a marriage between two imperfect people, as we're called to do, and then use it and share it For the hope of our marriage and to give hope to the next generation. We've got to choose to break the generational curses that marriage myths create. We've got to give our kids and our kids' kids a model for how to make those difficult marital decisions. We've got to choose not to shield them from pain but to help them biblically cope with it in a way that shows them that hope is not lost. We've got to choose to show them how to love eternally and unconditionally and not just out of obligation. That's not how Jesus loves you and I. He is passionate for you.

Speaker 3:

What I've come to understand by reading Deuteronomy 6 is that it's not my job to give my kids a burden-free life that does not show them the hope and the power of Jesus Christ. I'm not called to shield them from the volatility that comes from an imperfect marriage between two sinners. Actually, it's my job to be real about these challenges and then show them how to navigate it with the hope and the love that we find in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't want you to stay living a marriage myth proficiently functioning. I want you to live for Christ, to call sin what it is and to deal with it head on. Don't let years of cumulative sarcasm and emotional stuffing erode your legacy. Don't let the marriage myths run you ragged until all you have left is varying levels of toxicity for everyone to see.

Speaker 2:

As we wrap up here on Vows to Keep Radio, don't fall prey to the myth that you aren't believing any marriage myths, because we all need to line up what we believe with God's word. If you missed any of this four-part series on marriage myths, where we cover almost a dozen of them, listen to each part on VowsToKeepcom.

Speaker 1:

Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not-for-profit organization, our commitment to Christlike marriages includes providing much-needed services, regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities, but would like to help support Vows to Keep financially, visit VowsToKeepcom and click on the Donate link. This program is sponsored by Vows to Keep of Zanesfield, ohio.

People on this episode

Head Shot

David Sellars

Host
Head Shot

Tracy Sellars

Host