There are several instances in the Old Testament that reference setting up stones as a remembrance to God’s people of what He accomplished in that location. While we don’t often mark God’s work with piles of stone today, He is still at work all around us, in ways both big and small. Want to see His goodness? Look at the lives He is touching.

When we catch glimpses of ways that He is working, usually how we least expect it, we like to refer to those as “God stories.” These moments might be when prayers are answered, when the Lord gives direction, or when He orchestrates details in a surprising way!

God stories help us encourage one another, build our faith, and see the miraculous ways that He is working to meet our needs. We’re excited to share some of our most powerful God stories, and we hope you’ll share yours with us in return.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How to use a “God box”
• How God orchestrated details to get us simple things like bread and milk
• The value in sharing our God stories
• And more!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Prefer to watch this episode? You can now view and subscribe to our YouTube.
• [BOOK] Real Moms…Real Jesus: Meet the Friend Who Understands
• What to Do When Your Adult Child Has Life-Controlling Issues | Episode 302
• Marriage Through the Ups and Downs of Life with Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapman | Episode 295
• As a thank you for listening, get your 3 free eBooks.

Our Key Takeaways:

1) We are called to remember. God asked His people to set up remembering stones because He knew that we can be quite forgetful. God calls us to remember how He has come through for us in the past. He is faithful to provide for His people. He cares about what we are going through and meets our needs. To give yourself consistent reminders of His grace, consider using a “God box” around your house, journaling about the ways God has provided for you, or regularly telling stories about how you have seen God show up.

2) Share your stories with one another. One of the reasons it’s important to share our stories is so that we might encourage one another, build up our faith, and see the unexpected ways God is at work. We’ve shared our own God story of how bumping into a man named Daniel at a coffee shop on our road trip led to us teaching in Uganda. We were not looking for that opportunity, and if we had not needed to tie a shoe, that connection may have never happened. Today, we can share how that one, out-of-the-way chance meeting led to hundreds of connections and encouragement for men, women, and children in Uganda. How amazing is that?

3) God likes to utilize unlikely sources. We’ve seen this happen time and time again! How many times have you prayed for God to answer your request in a simple, straightforward way, only to watch Him work through something completely unexpected? Sometimes, God likes to use extraordinary measures! He works through the unknown blessing of barely expired bread, store closures, shoelaces, unlikely connections, and so much more. When we think about it, it’s incredible all the ways our needs and prayers have been answered in such a way that it could only be from God.

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As you walk through life, are you feeling stuck in relationships or frozen by fear? Perhaps you even feel unsure of how to draw closer to God. We certainly felt that way in the past, which is why Mark and I faced our fears, mustered up some courage, and did the hard work to move from the 1.0 versions of ourselves to the 2.0 life and 2.0 relationship we enjoy now.

I know my guest for today’s conversation not only has a passion for helping people journey through fear to freedom, but she also understands what it takes to face your life with courage.

Ann White is an author, speaker, and passionate Bible teacher. She is the founder of Courage For Life, a ministry dedicated to helping people find restoration, hope, and healing as they learn how to walk with God-given courage in the face of fear.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How to move away from fear-based decision-making
• Ann’s personal story of turning to courage
• Practical tips to courageously take the next step in the face of fear
• And more!

When I read Ann’s book, I knew she would be the perfect guest to give a fresh perspective on living a 2.0 life!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Prefer to watch this episode? You can now view and subscribe to our YouTube.
• ​​[BOOK] Courage For Life: Discover a life full of confidence, hope, and opportunity!
• Courage For Life Bible
• Connect with Ann on her website, Facebook, or Instagram
• As a thank you for listening, get your 3 free eBooks.

My Key Takeaways:

1) Remove your masks. Before this journey into courage can begin, we need to have a long, honest look at who we are inside. Many of us have donned “masks,” whether it’s due to people pleasing, inherited from our family culture, or a result of fear. We tend to use these masks to hide the parts of ourselves that we consider inadequate or unattractive. But we have to be willing to pull those masks off in order to be truly known by ourselves and others.

2) Living out of courage doesn’t mean that fear doesn’t exist. As Ann said, “If there is no fear, then there is no courage.” Rather than waiting for fear to disappear, we can choose to trust God with the next step. Living courageously means stepping out in faith, even when the path ahead feels uncertain, and leaving the outcome in His hands.

3) Start by being open to courage. This looks like being willing to take on any opportunity that God may send your way. Courage will look different for every person. It could mean having a conversation with someone even if it puts you outside of your comfort zone. It could be committing to living a life free of masks that distort who you really are. Or, it could be something more drastic, like shifting careers. Whatever it is for you, I encourage you to spend some time in prayer this week, asking that God would help you be open and ready for these opportunities.

About Ann:

Ann White is an author, speaker, and passionate Bible teacher. She is the founder of Courage For Life, a ministry dedicated to creating resources that foster emotional health and spiritual growth for everyone who desires to grow in their relationship with God. Ann has a deep desire to extend love, mercy, and encouragement to others. Ann resides in Florida, where she also fills the roles of wife, mother, and grandmother.

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Only 43.3% of couples reported being “happy” with how often they and their partner engaged in intimacy.

These results weren’t surprising to us, because there have been seasons in our own marriage when our expectations around sex weren’t aligned.

At one point, Mark even bought a book called Sex Begins in the Kitchen, assuming it would be a field guide to adventurous romance in the kitchen, the garden, and every other room of the house. To his surprise, it wasn’t about that at all. Instead, the book explored how lasting intimacy and passion are built through the small, everyday moments outside the bedroom.

Reading it gave us a new perspective. We realized how many opportunities we’d been overlooking to build intimacy long before we ever climbed into bed.

Today, we coach couples who are often looking for help on how they can reconnect, emotionally and physically, for a better marriage. Here’s what we tell them: There’s no magic wand you can wave and instantly have a better sex life, but there are a couple of key factors that can make or break your sex life. And here’s a secret: they both happen outside of the bedroom.

Here are two areas you can address that will drastically improve your sex life:

1) Your Attitude

“You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” 

Have you heard this phrase before? The lesson is a simple one: if our demeanor and tone are rude, miffed, or particularly spiteful, we are likely to get a similar response in kind.

If, from the moment we are around our spouse, all they hear is grumbling, complaining, criticisms, and grouchiness, how likely do you think they are going to be to initiate sex? More than likely, they will give you space to avoid making your mood worse. 

This doesn’t mean we should sweep conflict under the rug, but we do need to check our attitude toward our spouse. It can either invite or shut the door to our partner’s desire to be physically intimate.

So what can we do about it? There are great studies on how our thinking affects our attitude and actions. For instance, if all we notice are the ways our spouse is “missing the mark” in our eyes, then we aren’t very likely to think about them positively.

We need to start by checking our own heart to uncover the beliefs we carry about our spouse. Here are a few questions we like to ask to discover if we have a poor attitude:

• Am I defensive?
• Am I critical?
• Am I thinking negatively about my spouse?
• Am I putting our children before my spouse?
• Am I selfish?
• Am I angry?

The second part of checking our attitude is intentionally looking for the positive in our spouse. Too often, we fall into confirmation bias—we start noticing only the behaviors that reinforce the negative story we’ve been telling ourselves.

LISTEN: Understanding Confirmation Bias in Relationships | Episode 238

Start by finding one thing to compliment your spouse about each day. This helps re-train our brain to notice the positive things they do and not just the negative. Next, take notice of what our attitude is when we interact with our spouse. If you are feeling resentment, it’s probably time to get some help to work through why you feel that way and then learn how to respectfully address any unresolved conflict with your spouse.

2) Emotional Safety

The second thing that can make or break your sex life is whether or not you have emotional safety in your marriage. 

Here’s what we mean by that: emotional safety is when you can express your feelings – positive and negative – and have no fear of retaliation, judgement, or rejection as a result of those feelings.

Many of us carry with us past hurts from when we were emotionally vulnerable with someone and experienced a negative response or rejection. We may have even learned to hide certain parts of ourselves in order to be accepted by others.

God’s design for marriage is that it would be a place where all our masks melt away, and we can deeply know one another as we experience emotional safety.

Here are some of the questions to ponder to determine if you have emotional safety in your relationship:

• Do I seek to understand and listen well over merely trying to fix the problem?
• Do I respect my partner’s yes and their no?
• Do I sulk or punish when I am disappointed?
• Do I value emotions? 
• Can I apologize when my actions impact my partner?

It can be scary to trust our spouse with the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. When we embrace the truth that we all have imperfections and remain committed to our spouse, that is when we experience emotional safety.

One of the beauties of experiencing emotional “nakedness” is that physical nakedness is usually quick to follow!

There is so much more to intimacy than what happens in the bedroom. Foreplay starts with an emotional connection and then leads into a physical connection.

Healthy intimacy isn’t built overnight—it’s cultivated through intentional conversations, shared experiences, and a willingness to keep learning together. 

That’s exactly why we’ve created our Date Night community. When you join, you’ll get instant access to not one, but two Deep Dives focused entirely on sex and intimacy. These in-depth sessions expand on many of the ideas we’ve shared in this article, giving you practical, biblical tools to strengthen this important part of your marriage. You’ll also enjoy creative monthly Date Night plans, expert interviews on marriage, live Q&As with Mark and I, and a growing library of marriage resources designed to help you thrive together.

We are currently accepting new members, and we want to invite you to join this interactive community and see what a difference it can make in strengthening your marriage!

Apply Today >>

Everything in life requires repair: homes, cars, computers, and most importantly, relationships. When we don’t appropriately repair our relationships from a rupture, big or small, then those hurts begin to pile up and create resentment.

At our marriage intensives, we often help couples clean up accumulated hurt that never got repaired simply because they didn’t have the tools to do so.

This is an important skill not only for relationships with a romantic partner, but also with our children and in friendships.

True repair goes beyond saying “I’m sorry,” and in this conversation, we share practical ways to approach conflict and hurts.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• What happens when you allow hurts to accumulate
• How justifying actions minimizes the other person’s feelings
• The steps to take in order to fully clean up hurts
• And more!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Prefer to watch this episode? You can now view and subscribe to our YouTube.
• Intent vs. Impact | Episode 170
• As a thank you for listening, get your 3 free eBooks.

Our Key Takeaways:

1) Stop hoarding hurts. When we don’t practice fully repairing after a conflict, hurts begin to accumulate over time and can turn into bitterness, anger, and even resentment. Make an agreement with your spouse to stop collecting hurts and instead practice fully resolving them during the repair process. When we create a habit of walking through repair with one another, then we can cultivate a healthy relationship.

2) Complete repair says more than, “I’m sorry.” Most of us have gritted out an “I’m sorry” on more than one occasion. While we have said the words, we didn’t feel remorse in our hearts. A true apology recognizes how our actions affected the other person. We like to lay out repair in three steps: 1. “I’m sorry for ___.” 2. “I can see it affected you (this way).” 3. “Would you please forgive me?” These steps show the other person that you understand how you have hurt them and that you are requesting their forgiveness.

3) Move to a place of seeking to understand. We can either defend our intent or seek to understand the impact of our actions. We cannot do both. Defending our intent can look like: “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. Well, you see, I was having a hard day at work, and so when I got home…” When we shift our priority to understand how our actions impacted the other person and empathize with them, then we can get to the heart of the hurt we have caused and move through genuine repair.

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We’ve come to recognize that our imperfect marriage doesn’t disqualify us from helping others; it’s what empowers us to offer guidance that is real, practical, and nonjudgmental.

Perhaps you’ve thought about what it would be like to step into the role of a marriage coach or mentor. Maybe you’re always the friend that other couples call for advice. Perhaps you’ve naturally stepped into an informal role of marriage ministry at your church, and want to know what it could look like to expand this.

You may be feeling disqualified to help others, or wondering if an investment in more formal training would be worth it long term.

We’ve been in your shoes, and so have all the couples who have gone through our training so far. All of us would tell you the same thing—taking the time to get trained as a marriage mentor or coach is:

1. Beneficial for your marriage.
2. Allows you to help the many couples who are struggling.
3. Allows you to strengthen your volunteer ministry or even build your own coaching business, if you desire.

We are sharing the stories of three couples who have been through our marriage training and what motivated them to take the next step.

Here are three testimonials from real marriage coaches on why they took our training. Take a look, you just might see yourself in one of their stories:

1) Samuel and Brandy

“We realized that outside of our experience we didn’t have a lot of tools to offer.”

While Samuel and Brandy were helping others, there were some topics they found hard to talk about. They wanted to equip themselves with more tools to be able to help other couples, no matter what they were struggling with, to build a stronger relationship.

After the cohort, Samuel and Brandy had the tools necessary to talk about any topic, including sex, and now help other couples learn how to have a productive conversation that draws them closer together.

Favorite Tools: Safe Conversation Script, Truth vs Lies Framework, and the God Tools

2) Dennis and Debbie

“My encouragement to you is that it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been married or how old you are; there’s always something new to learn that can improve your marriage, your life, and even your interactions with other people.”

This couple has been married for over 50 years. What we love about them is that they have made it a point to invest back into their marriage year after year. They’ve attended other seminars, trainings, and heard from an array of speakers on the topic of marriage.

Dennis and Debbie learned so many valuable lessons to aid in keeping their marriage strong for many years still to come. One of the key things they walked away from this training with was the ability to recognize the difference between when something was intentionally hurtful or merely different from their preference. 

Favorite Tools: Attachment Styles

3) Chris and Jamie

“We just want to be vessels for the Lord to work in couples who are stuck but still trying to repair their marriages.”

Something clicked for this couple when they took our Marriage Coach training. They had been through the hills and valleys of marriage, but they wanted a framework to help others.

Today, Chris and Jamie have their own coaching under the umbrella of our Certified Coach program. They are able to offer hope for the future to couples who are wanting to create a 2.0 marriage.

Favorite Tools: Attachment Styles

Through our Creating 2.0 Marriages Course, we’ve worked with countless couples to utilize our Marriage 2.0 framework to better their relationship and help others create the marriage they desire. Now, we are inviting you to do the same!

Our next info meeting is August 10th, 2026. At this meeting, we’ll share more about what this Marriage Coaching Cohort entails, some of our exclusive diagnostic tools to help uncover a couple’s unique challenges, why coaching and mentoring is important, and much more.

Save Your Spot for the Info Session >>

Whether you want to use this training to strengthen your own marriage, become a volunteer mentor in your church or community, become a certified coach that establishes their own business, or broaden what you already offer as a coach or licensed counselor, you won’t want to miss this opportunity!

If you want to get serious about protecting and strengthening marriages, we’ve created a free guide to help you serve couples with confidence, clarity, and Christ at the center. In this free resource, you’ll get instant access to learn how to…

• Heal and strengthen marriages (even if your own has struggled in the past)
• Mentor with skill and confidence (even without years of experience)
• Start building a community (even if you’re starting from scratch)

Whether you’re hoping to build up a marriage coaching practice of your own, serve as an invaluable pillar of support for the couples in your church community, or simply improve your ability to offer advice to friends and family members who need it, this resource is for you.

Get started by downloading your free copy of Your Path to Becoming a Christian Marriage Coach now, and take your first step toward the calling God has placed on your heart.

Are you chronically stressed? Do you often scroll on your phone to “numb out?” At the end of each day, do you feel wired and tired, just barely getting by?

In a survey of over 2,000 Christian women, 91% admitted that they were tired of pushing through every day. 87% said they regularly felt overwhelmed, but only 11% reported having any way to reset in real time.

My latest guest says that the data she gathered in that survey confirmed the nightmare she was already living. Alli Worthington is the author of five books, including The Year of Living Happy and Breaking Busy. She is also a speaker, author, podcaster, and business coach who helps women thrive.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• What happens to our bodies when we scroll to relax
• Strategies to close the “stress cycle”
• Simple ways you can restore peace in your life
• And more!

I loved Alli’s fresh perspective on why we experience burnout and her helpful tips to find peace!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Prefer to watch this episode? You can now view and subscribe to our YouTube.
• ​​Oura Ring 
• Uplift Community App
• Connect with Alli on her website, Facebook, or Instagram
• As a thank you for listening, get your 3 free eBooks.

My Key Takeaways:

1) Balance your output to match your input. Burnout occurs when we have an imbalance of these two. We have to be sure we are pouring into ourselves just as much as we are pouring out. That may mean engaging in a hobby you enjoy, getting quality sleep, or getting to visit with close friends on a regular basis.

2) Stress causes our bodies to need a physical release. Too often, we turn to “doom scrolling” as a way to numb out after high stress. Or perhaps you are one who tries to think about your situation to strategize it away. These methods are not enough; we have to complete the stress cycle. Instead of disconnecting or trying to think your way through it, try doing something physical to resolve the stress cycle. Some of Alli’s and my favorite ways to do this is by going for a walk, having a good cry, jumping on a trampoline, or practicing deep breathing. As Mark and I like to say, “Our emotion needs motion.”

3) Start your day off on the right foot. The first 10 minutes of our day set the tone for the next 12 hours. Instead of sitting in bed scrolling on your phone, get some sunlight in your eyes. This signals to our bodies that it’s time to wake up and helps reset our circadian rhythm. If you can practice staying off your phone for the first 10 minutes you are awake, you may find that your overall stress levels decrease greatly!

About Alli:

Alli Worthington is an author, speaker, podcaster, and business coach who helps women thrive. Alli’s guilt-free take on business, family, and balance has led to multiple appearances on The Today Show and Good Morning America. She lives outside of Nashville with her husband, Mark, and their five sons. In her spare time, you can find Alli at the nearest amusement park riding coasters and eating her body weight in dairy-free ice cream.

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When we adopted our fifth child, Nicolai, at the age of nine, we never imagined we would end up battling circumstances that would lead to over 100 hospital visits.

Today, as an adult, Nicolai has several issues that prevent him from having a normal life. Before we go any further, we do want to let you know that Nicolai gave his permission to share his story. He struggles to manage money and lives primarily in homeless camps. When we do get to see him, our visits are short and typically away from the rest of our adult children.

As parents, we’ve struggled to know how to help him and have learned the hard way that we shouldn’t always rescue him from his circumstances. If you or a loved one has an adult child with life-controlling problems like mental illness, addiction, homelessness, or another similar struggle, we hope this deeply honest and vulnerable conversation can be a helpful resource.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why you can’t make your child’s problems go away
• How to lovingly detach
• How your child’s struggles impact everyone in your family
• And more!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Prefer to watch this episode? You can now view and subscribe to our YouTube.
• We would love to pray for you. Drop us an email here.
• [BOOK] Empty Nest, Full Life
• Coaching
• As a thank you for listening, get your 3 free eBooks.

Our Key Takeaways:

1) Your adult child has to want to change. We found that there were many instances where we wanted Nicolai to overcome his circumstances more than he did. This mentality only leads to burning yourself out and putting in far more effort than your adult child to help change occur. The person has to want change and be the one doing the most effort. You can’t do the work on behalf of your child.

2) Practice loving detachment. While in the thick of Nicolai’s issues, it felt like every time he had a problem, our entire world would come crashing to a halt. That’s when we learned about loving detachment, which is a term that those familiar with addiction might know. When you practice loving detachment, you still show up for the person in their time of need, but you don’t let their challenges take over your entire life. For us, this meant visiting Nicolai in the hospital, praying for him, and then lovingly detaching by returning to our lives.

3) Resist the urge to rescue them from every struggle. We also like to refer to this as don’t steal the struggle. It’s a reminder that our children need to make mistakes; this is how they can learn and come up with creative solutions. When we step in too soon or without being asked for help, we inadvertently prevent them from growing as a result of that experience. Giving our children the freedom to mess up and clean up the mess on their own is actually one of the best gifts we can give them.

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I don’t have time for rest! My schedule is too full. I’m too stressed out. I will fall too far behind if I take a break.

Do any of these sound familiar to you? Rest is essential for our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. It’s so important that God gave us an example of rest in the creation story at the beginning of the Bible. Yet, it’s so easy to let this basic human need fall by the wayside when life gets busy.

We’ve been wanting to touch on the topic of rest for a while, and we can’t think of a more fitting pair of guests for this conversation than our good friends, Scott and Myndee Anderson. Scott’s father, James, was the author of a book called For God’s Sake, Rest!, and growing up, Scott’s household tried to prioritize those very concepts his father wrote about.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why we find it difficult to rest
• The #1 sign that you are actually experiencing rest
• Scott and Myndee’s reflections on visiting Uganda with us
• And more!

We are delighted to have such dear friends on the show to talk about such an important topic!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Prefer to watch this episode? You can now view and subscribe to our YouTube.
• Scott & Myndee in Uganda
• To Uganda with Love with Pastor Zachariah | Episode 135
• [BOOK] For God’s Sake, Rest!
• As a thank you for listening, get your 3 free eBooks.

My Key Takeaways:

1) Rest is more than sitting still. Rest is found when we take intentional time for self-reflection. This introspection not only helps us discover unknown areas of sin within us, but it also helps us release control to our Heavenly Father. In this conversation, Scott mentioned a practice of writing down all your worries or current life obligations. When you look at this list, ask yourself if there is anything you can do to affect the outcome. If the answer is no, those are the things we should release to God. Why not take some time this week to make your own list? You may be surprised how this simple practice can quiet your mind.

2) Practice pausing with gratitude. Creating a ritual of rest doesn’t have to be some long, drawn-out event. Start small by noticing what you are thankful for as it happens. This could be by physically writing it down or by offering up small prayers. The prayer may be something as simple and straightforward as “Thank you, God, for that beautiful flower.” When we practice gratitude, it tells our minds what to take notice of and who created it.

3) Real rest requires releasing your cares to God. In today’s go-go-go culture, it can seem like there is no end to what we have to worry about: the to-do list, the future, our schedule for the day, the economy, our children, finances, and more! While you may have attempted to create a habit of rest in the past, you will know when you are truly practicing rest when you finally feel the weight of all the worry you’ve been carrying lifted off your shoulders.

About Scott and Myndee:

Scott and Myndee Anderson have three children and split their time between Minnesota and Florida. Scott’s father, James, was the author of For God’s Sake, Rest! Scott grew up in a household that tried to prioritize the concepts his father wrote about. Scott serves as a volunteer Board Chair for the Anderson Center, which provides management and leadership development services to facilitate economic progress in Greater Minnesota. He is also the Executive Vice President and CAO at Anderson Trucking Service.

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Things like the date he asked for a divorce and left our home or the hotel he would frequent during the affair would bring up all kinds of negative emotions for me. Yet, as we did the healing work around these triggers, do you know what we learned?

Everything that threatens to be a trigger can be reclaimed and reframed in a more positive light. 

Mark: We worked with a couple recently on this very principle in our coaching and were reminded of how many people still feel the lingering effects of broken trust. Healing is a long process, and there are bound to be moments along the way when one or both spouses is hurt by a memory of the betrayal. We can’t stop this. However, what we can do is choose to reframe triggers from a negative to a positive. This process is not always easy, but it is so worth it if both partners are committed.

Jill: That’s right! That’s why, in order to help other couples who may be experiencing and struggling with triggers, we are sharing our tips for how to reframe and reclaim them.

Identifying Triggers

Mark: A trigger could be any number of things, from a location to a date to a behavior. There are no limits, because each couple and their experience is unique. For a spouse whose betrayal involved financial mismanagement, a trigger for their partner might be finding a large amount of cash in their wallet. If cash was previously used to avoid leaving a digital record of spending, discovering it can quickly bring up feelings of fear, suspicion, or uncertainty. This can be true even if the spouses have been putting in consistent work to rebuild trust over time.

Jill: In our story, many of my triggers were tied to places associated with the affair. Some were local locations connected to what had happened, and I would feel on edge whenever I or we drove near them.

Another location that threatened to become a trigger was the city where the affair partner lived. Coincidentally, it was also the city where our extended family lived, which meant we occasionally needed to travel there to visit them. Sometimes Mark needed to travel there alone to help his mother. At first, that felt daunting, because the city had become linked to the betrayal in my mind. However, thanks to the intentional steps Mark took to rebuild trust like taking a friend with him on those trips early in the rebuilding trust journey, those trips did not become the source of ongoing fear they could have been. We’ll share more about that later.

Dates were also a big thing for me. The first year the date Mark walked away from our marriage (February 4th) showed up on the calendar, I experienced a sense of dread, as all the emotions I felt when he left came bubbling back to the surface. It’s almost like my body remembered it before my mind remembered it!

Mark: Once we identified these areas of frustration, fear, or apprehension, we were able to move on to reclaiming and reframing them from a negative to a positive. If you are reading this and you have not yet begun the healing process from broken trust, then we highly recommend starting with our roadmap. Reframing your triggers should come after trust has already begun to be rebuilt.

READ: A 4-Step Roadmap for Healing from Infidelity and Broken Trust

Reclaiming and Reframing

Jill: While it may not feel like it right away, we have the power to change how we interpret our triggers. We can choose whether we are going to view them through the lens of our hurt or through the lens of our healing. Our hurt reminds us of the pain of the past and causes us to relive that experience each time we are triggered. However, our healing reminds us that this is just one part of our story. We have the ability to take our thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:5) and direct how they’re going to impact us moving forward.

Mark: One of the first things we did in our healing process was intentionally reframe the date I had walked away from Jill. Reframing a trigger isn’t about asking your spouse to forget what happened or erase the painful emotions associated with it. Instead, the goal is to introduce new, positive associations alongside the old ones.

With that in mind, when February 4th rolled around on the following year, we planned a weekend getaway at a cabin. Rather than spending the day dreading what it represented, we chose to create a new memory together.

Today, the Feb 4 memory reminds us of that weekend away—the conversations we shared, the connection we rebuilt, and the healing that was already underway.

Jill: You can do something similar in your own marriage! Consider all the ways you might reclaim the triggers that you experience. If it’s a song, consider reclaiming it by taking dance lessons with your spouse so you can bust a move together every time it comes up. If your trigger is a location, how might you create new, positive memories there? And if it’s a particular time of year or specific date, plan a date or a getaway during that time that you will look back on fondly. You might consider making it an annual activity that you can look forward to year after year.

Mark: We’ve worked with many couples in our coaching and intensives on overcoming the triggers in their relationship. For some, a room in their home was a trigger that brought up memories of the betrayal. Reclaiming that trigger looked like giving the room a makeover, repainting it, and giving it a new purpose.

A Word to the One Who Broke Trust

Mark: I want to take a moment to give some advice to the one who did the betraying in the relationship. While reframing triggers related to the broken trust might not be as important for you as it is for your spouse, it’s crucial that you show up and commit fully to this process. 

Be sure to acknowledge the pain and trauma your actions caused. Whenever possible, take the lead in rebuilding trust. Ask your partner if they are ready or willing to take some steps to reclaim a certain trigger. It may be that they need more time before they are ready to take that step; if that’s the case, communicate your understanding, offer reassurance, and take that next step with them when they are ready.

As Jill and I reclaimed triggers, it was important that I held myself accountable and offered up information she needed to feel safe. This is not about being monitored. It’s about choosing to be transparent, forthcoming, and patient as you rebuild trust one honest conversation at a time. Here’s a practical example:

Because my affair partner lived in the same town as my extended family, when Jill and I were rebuilding trust, I knew I needed to take the lead in pushing accountability when it came to visiting my family. I decided to take the extra step of having a friend travel with me whenever I visited my mom and Jill wasn’t able to go with me. This protected my marriage by removing any concerns about what I was doing while I was there. For Jill, this city, and my trips there to see family, could have become a trigger for anxiety and worry. But by taking the lead and pushing accountability, I helped reframe this location in her mind from a potential trigger to a clear sign of my commitment.

Jill: I know it can be daunting to face your triggers, let alone reframe them. However, we have seen the power that reclaiming and reframing can have for a healing relationship. There is not one couple whom we have counseled that would say it wasn’t worth the work! 

Mark: We want to offer one more resource as you and your spouse walk through reframing triggers, and that is our 2.0 Marriage Intensive weekend. We understand how lonely and hopeless it can feel when your marriage is hurting, and we do these intensives because we love coming alongside couples so they don’t struggle alone. 

Our intensive could be for you if…

• You’re in crisis after infidelity or betrayed trust has been discovered.
• Your marriage is not in crisis, but you feel like something is missing. You want to make your relationship better, but you don’t know how.
• You’ve read books, listened to podcasts, gone to counseling, and still the same issues keep coming up to cause trouble in your relationship.
• The kids have grown up and left home, and you suddenly find yourself looking at each other asking, “Who are you?”
• Years of struggle have worn you down. You’re resigned that nothing can ever be different.

Jill: If you’re ready to grow, take the chance to get a year’s worth of counseling sessions in one transforming weekend—with follow-up care as well. 

Mark: Our pledge to you is that you’ll return home with a renewed sense of understanding and commitment in your marriage, along with practical tools and strategies that will guide you through a lifetime of marital connection.

LEARN MORE OR BOOK YOUR MARRIAGE INTENSIVE WEEKEND HERE.

Are you feeling worn out from doing all the heavy lifting in your marriage? You are the only spouse who is putting in the effort to listen to podcasts, read the books, and initiate thoughtful conversations—or at least it feels that way.

Resentment is slowly starting to build as you think to yourself over and over, “Why am I the only one doing the work to improve our marriage?”

The topic for this conversation was inspired by a listener-submitted question that asks:

“Is the woman in the marriage the one who does most of the heavy lifting to promote emotional growth?”

This is such an important question, and in this episode, we’re here to answer it. Listen in to hear our thoughts, as well as some tips to help you not only encourage growth in your spouse, but to shift your perspective on the effort they are already putting in.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How your attachment style affects the way you pursue depth in a relationship
• How you can invite connection in your marriage
• How to know when you are being called to accept your partner where they are
• And more!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Prefer to watch this episode? You can now view and subscribe to our YouTube.
• Tackling Selfishness | Episode 298
• [BOOK] No More Perfect Marriages
• BONUS: Why Marriage Should Be 70/30, Not 50/50
• FREE Attachment Quiz
• Understanding Attachment Course
• Wait Is Not Wasted Course
• Wait Is Not Wasted FREE Webinar
• As a thank you for listening, get your 3 free eBooks.

Our Key Takeaways:

1) The anxiously attached partner is typically the one motivated to do more work. To answer the listener’s question: No, it isn’t always women who are doing the majority of the work to grow the relationship. We’ve found that people who have an anxious attachment style, regardless of their gender, have a tendency to never feel satisfied with things as they are. While this may make it look like they are the ones working on the relationship, there’s also a downside to this mindset. As soon as their current desire for connection and growth is met, their insecurity bubbles up again, and the goalpost gets pushed further away.

2) Invite rather than accuse. Have you ever heard the saying that you’ll catch more flies with honey? It’s the same concept here. If we only communicate to our spouse all they aren’t doing, then there is very little incentive to change. Try this approach instead: replace “you never…” with “would you join me…” This might also look like a brainstorming session on activities you both would like to do together to increase your connection. We love taking 5 minutes at the end of a meal to chitchat before moving on with our evening!

3) Acceptance is needed where you are most frustrated. The act of releasing our spouse from our unrealistic expectations and instead meeting them where they are is so crucial. It’s important to stop measuring what is missing and instead see what your spouse actually brings to the relationship. If there is a particular area in your relationship where you are constantly frustrated with your spouse, that’s a sure-fire sign that you need to reach for the God tool of acceptance. Take some time to identify the positive things about who your spouse is and what they bring into this relationship.

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