FamilyLife Today®

Kathryn Voetberg: Something that really helped me know that I wanted to be forever with Elisha is considering that he's going to be the father of my kiddos one day, Lord willing. How do I want him to raise those children?

Because I think that there are certain things in your dating life where you're like, I can put up with it, or we have this different moral system, or we have this different view of media. All these things don't really shake out until you have kids, and all of a sudden it really matters to you.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I'm Dave Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

One of my favorite or worst memories about teaching on parenting, we've shared this here before on FamilyLife Today, but we were going to speak on parenting and it's going to be shown to eight campuses at our church.

Ann Wilson: We were in a series, and we were together speaking on parenting.

Dave Wilson: Ann and I are both up there, and you turned to me spontaneously at the beginning of the message and said, "Hey, what do you remember most about the baby and toddler years?"

The first thought that came to my mind was I remember thinking I'll never take another nap the rest of my life. Because you never sleep, right? But what I actually said is, "I remember thinking I'll never take another..." and it rhymed with nap. I'm being nice on the broadcast because maybe your kids are listening, and it's a word you tell them not to use, but it rhymes with nap. You can guess what I'm trying to say.

The place just breaks up. I literally said to the video team, "Edit that. Do not show that tomorrow at the campuses." They were like, "That one's staying." For years, people would text me and say, "Hey, have you taken a nap yet?" Not nap, but whatever.

Ann Wilson: I don't think you did take a nap in all those years.

Dave Wilson: Here's the thing. We're talking about raising kids today, babies, the whole thing, and what actually happens in a marriage and maybe parents afterwards. We've got a great couple in the studio with us. Elisha and Kathryn Voetberg are with us. Welcome to FamilyLife Today.

Elisha Voetberg: Thank you so much for having us. It's such a privilege and an honor.

Dave Wilson: Tell our listeners what you do.

Elisha Voetberg: Kathryn and I have been fortunate enough to be able to have a platform called nowthatweareafamily.com. This started a few years back out of us experiencing life as parents for the first time. We were brought up in Christian families and, by God's grace, we've got big Christian families.

Ann Wilson: How many?

Elisha Voetberg: I'm one of 10 children.

Kathryn Voetberg: I'm the oldest of 11. We had that in common when we got married. We knew we'd probably have a few more kids than average. We wanted to speak to those big family dynamics and look back at our childhoods and think about what our parents did well.

Why did we have this good experience? If we want to have a big family, how do we ensure that our children have a good experience and don't feel like they're left out or overlooked? That drove the start of us looking back to our backgrounds and sharing what we were learning with our own kiddos.

Dave Wilson: As you navigate your life with these little kids, what are you doing every day? You're doing podcasts, writing, speaking, blogging?

Elisha Voetberg: All of the above. For the last two years especially, Kathryn's done less and less. She's still the prominent face of Now That We’re a Family, but she only works about two or three hours a week.

Ann Wilson: She's working all week. Just in a different capacity.

Dave Wilson: There's a mom clarifying for every mom listening.

Elisha Voetberg: That's worth clarifying. It's the most glorious work that you can find.

Ann Wilson: Were you both homeschooled growing up?

Elisha Voetberg: We were.

Kathryn Voetberg: That was something we also had a good experience with. I know that's not everybody's experience, but we both really felt like it gave us a lot of different opportunities. We loved it. We loved the family bonding that happened within homeschooling.

Ann Wilson: You guys have written a book for the mom and a book for the dad. It's called *After the Baby: The Five Biggest Pain Points of Postpartum and How to Work Through Them as a Married Couple*.

Dave Wilson: Before we get to *After the Baby*, we've got to hear *Before the Baby*. Give us a little bit of your story. As I read it in the beginning of both your books, it's pretty fascinating. Is it really true there's this trampoline when you're eight years old? Is that how it started?

Kathryn Voetberg: I remember very distinctly being underneath the trampoline at eight years old, which is a hazardous place to be. I was sitting there with my sister, and I was looking out, and you could just see Elisha's legs. He had these big basketball shoes on. He had these skinny tan legs.

I told my sister, "I have a crush on that guy." I did my research, and I found out his name was Elisha Peter Voetberg. I went home and wrote in my journal, "I want to marry Elisha Peter Voetberg." I actually found that journal when I was 19 and dating someone else at the time. It didn't seem real relevant, but the Lord had a plan.

Ann Wilson: Elisha, was that your plan?

Elisha Voetberg: I did not know Kathryn existed at this point. I'm four and a half years older than Kathryn. When I'm 12 and she's eight, that's a pretty big separation. When I'm 16 and she's 12, and when I'm 20 and she's 16, it was a big gap.

It wasn't really until Kathryn was 18, 19, or 20 that I even saw her as a prospect, somebody that was within the realm of being somebody that I could pursue.

Dave Wilson: "Prospect" sounds like the NFL Draft or something.

Elisha Voetberg: That's how I had it laid out on my spreadsheet. I'm teasing. Fortunately, I had known Kathryn's parents. I had known her family, and I had just the utmost respect for her as a person and then her entire family. She comes from a rich family of faith, a family that's just blessed with generational faith.

Ann Wilson: We've met her parents, and they are remarkable people.

Elisha Voetberg: I couldn't agree more.

Kathryn Voetberg: I was pen pals with Elisha's little sisters, and we would see each other once a year at this family camp where we met. We wrote letters and were best friends. I think that kind of put me in the little sister category for a long time. It didn't really work in my favor.

When I was 18, you talked to my dad, and we had this highly monitored courtship because here's this older guy coming in and talking to me. I think it was when you came to my high school basketball game.

Elisha Voetberg: I think it was your high school volleyball game.

Kathryn Voetberg: Did I say basketball?

Elisha Voetberg: I didn't even know you played high school basketball.

Kathryn Voetberg: I don't even play basketball. Elisha plays basketball. At that point, I was 18 and he was almost 23. I think it was just all the girls on my team thought it was kind of weird. He was out of college, basically, and I was still in high school. The age gap just seemed pretty big right there.

Elisha Voetberg: As much as I respect that man, second only to my father, he made it really hard for us to date that first time. That's true. And so there was not much room for chemistry to happen at all during that first go-around.

Kathryn Voetberg: We ended our formal courtship with my parents really heavily involved at that stage. We dated other people. When we started dating again the second time, we really had this appreciation for who the other person was.

We didn't take for granted that you were homeschooled and I was homeschooled. That's a big conversation we don't have to have when it comes to our kids. We both know we value that for our own family. You want a larger-than-average family; I do too.

The first time around, I think we just assumed all these commonalities that we had. After having these conversations and realizing what a big deal they were to have with people that didn't grow up in the same culture that we both did, it was a breath of fresh air to already agree on stuff.

Dave Wilson: Since you had so many commonalities and this beautiful courtship, because you did it the awkward, strange way and then the second time was here we go, was marriage easy?

Elisha Voetberg: I know marriage is entered into in so many different stages of life and in so many different stations in life. Kathryn's and my dating and being engaged was far more challenging than our first year of marriage.

I think we were very intentional in our dating and engagement. We had zero fun. It was all work. We just had a list of these controversial topics we were going over.

Ann Wilson: That's pretty unusual too because a lot of people see that as, let's just have fun, let's just prepare for the wedding day. It sounds like you're preparing for a lifetime together. What were those conversations? What kind of conversations were you having?

Kathryn Voetberg: Alcohol was a big one. I grew up in a family that didn't drink at all; Elisha's family did. Theology was really big for us. It's funny because we were both Christian, but then you break down the nuances of what that means, what's big for one person and what's not, how you want to raise your kids. There was stuff like that we didn't even talk about until we were a couple years married because I just shut down. I don't want to talk about that. We're both Christians, and that's what matters.

Elisha Voetberg: Like you said, on paper, it seems like there was nothing that we had different in our experiences: big families, homeschooled, great Christian parents, great Christian grandparents. In a lot of ways, I think there can be a danger in assuming that you have a lot of things in common.

That can happen to anybody. You say, "Oh, we're both Christians," and then you start to get to how this is going to flesh out in our life because the practical Christian life is going to look different for each and every couple. You have expectations.

Sometimes you don't realize you have expectations until the situation is brought upon you. You say, "Well, we've always done it this way," and "I've always done it that way." Since we had such positive experiences growing up, I think we both came in assuming a lot of our expectations were the right way. You think it was great for me, why would we do anything otherwise?

Being able to address some of those issues early on, and of course it didn't end on the marriage day, we continued to have those and still do continue to have those conversations about things that we did differently, what maybe we want to do differently in our family.

Kathryn Voetberg: But I mean also too, you are two different people coming from two different backgrounds no matter what. Even communication styles. I come from a very vocal family. We all just kind of blow up and say everything on our mind, and then afterwards we're like, "Oh, hey, I'm sorry about that."

Elisha's family is a lot more thoughtful and takes it to heart. You're still navigating all that stuff because you are two different people that just think there's different ways of doing things, even if you agree that there's a similar outcome that you both want.

Dave Wilson: You were doing the work that every couple should do, and a lot of us don't, and then we have to do it after. Some don't make it because they think it shouldn't be this hard. It is hard. It's always hard. If you go in thinking it shouldn't be hard and then it's hard, you're like, "I'm out," or as we've often been told, "I married the wrong person." We say, "Nope, you're looking in the wrong place."

Ann Wilson: It also sounds like you both respect your parents and grandparents. I'm sure they were speaking into your lives as well. When you're being homeschooled, you're being discipled that whole time. I'm sure that was really important to you. Did you feel like you sought your parents' advice?

Elisha Voetberg: Big time. That was something that I think Kathryn and I both appreciated in each other is our teachability. Both of us looked at where we wanted to be and where we were, and we were thinking, between here and where we want to be is a whole lot of growth.

Growth is going to come from learning, from being receptive and open to critique and to coaching and counseling.

Kathryn Voetberg: That's still even more true today. You realize how far you still have to go, how much you still have to learn every day.

Ann Wilson: This is a great conversation. Before we continue, I just want to remind our listeners that our vision at FamilyLife is every home a godly home, and we need your help to get there. When you become a FamilyLife partner, your monthly support makes that vision actually possible.

Dave Wilson: You'll get access to exclusive updates and events and the chance to join our partners-only online community. But more than that, you're helping change the future of families. So the question is, will you come alongside us and alongside families in need?

Ann Wilson: You can go to familylifetoday.com and read more about it and become a partner. Just click the donate button at the top. And again, you can go to familylifetoday.com.

If somebody's engaged, what do you hope for them? What do you hope are some of the steps that they would take?

Kathryn Voetberg: Something that my dad told me that you don't want to hear when you're engaged, but he told me this two weeks prior to my wedding. He said, "Kathryn, if you are not 100% confident that you want to spend the rest of your life with this guy, I will refund everyone's plane ticket, we will cancel the wedding. It's always easier to say no now than it is once you are forever joined to this person."

Something that really helped me know that I wanted to be forever with Elisha is considering that he's going to be the father of my kiddos one day, Lord willing. How do I want him to raise those children? Because I think that there are certain things in your dating life where you're like, I can put up with it, or we have this different moral system, or we have this different view of media.

All these things don't really shake out until you have kids, and all of a sudden it really matters to you. Obviously, you can't anticipate exactly how you're going to feel when you have children, but going into it thinking, is this person totally submitted to Christ?

Because if that is in place, then we know that we have this third party that we can go to when we're disagreeing. We can go to Scripture. Do I trust them to raise my kids and to make decisions when I'm not around? Those were two things that were going through my mind when we were getting married, and that gave me big peace when I had answered both of those things. We can figure the rest out.

Elisha Voetberg: That was well said. I agree with everything Kathryn said. It's a huge blessing to have a wife that thinks that way. I can get emotional thinking about Kathryn's commitment to the Word and her submission to Christ and her acknowledgment of His Lordship, submitting to Him. How easy is it to not do that?

How easy is it to then want to lay my life down for my bride as Christ did for the church when I see her glorifying God, serving Him, and honoring me when I don't deserve it? When Kathryn reads the Scriptures and she says, "Wives are supposed to submit to their husbands," she doesn't say, "Okay, well, once he's a man worth submitting to, then I'll submit to him." She says, "I'm going to obey God, and I'll submit to this guy."

Do I deserve it? Do I earn it? No, I didn't do anything, just kind of like my salvation. That is a cool place to grow from. When I think of starting our marriage, it's crazy how lightly we can enter into it. But then you look at Scripture. Marriage being the first institution God ordained here on earth. What has He done from that?

He's spread His image throughout the whole world from that first marriage. The influence that the family has had is unparalleled to anything. It spread Christ's image and God's image throughout the world. He did it again with Noah and his family. He said, "That's all I need. If I've got a family, I can spread my image and accomplish my mission."

Yet it's so easy to go into marriage because it's common. You think it's ordinary, and I think that that's not how it is. There's something spiritual that's happening. It's a covenantal relationship. There's not too much preparation. When you think of a business plan, you think it would be pretty in-depth. You'd have spreadsheets, you'd have financial goals, you'd have maybe a target customer base that you're going for.

You'd break it all down, and no detail would be too minute. Even take this. That's a business plan. What do people think when they think of family planning? They simply think of numbers. That's what they think of, spacing and kids. Couldn't our family, couldn't our home have more of an in-depth plan than that, a vision, a mission statement, something that we're going to be about as a home?

Again, I know I didn't have as high of a view of family as the Scriptures have and as God has entering into marriage. Going back, I wish I would have been more in awe of what this really is. How humble I feel to be able to enter into this institution that You have ordained and that is a representative of Your relationship with us.

Dave Wilson: As you look back, you've been married seven years. As you look back, especially year one, coming from these families and the work you did before, was there an issue or a struggle that you remember especially in the first year or two that was really hard, that you really had to work to get through?

Kathryn Voetberg: One comes to my mind. I don't know what comes to your mind.

Elisha Voetberg: Let's hear yours first.

Kathryn Voetberg: This was a mixed thing, but Elisha had this group of friends that he was really close to. Due to my explosive nature of communicating, he did not feel safe with me and my reactions. He would take everything that he was thinking—I wasn't the first person to hear about it. I wasn't his best friend.

I wasn't that safe place for him. He would take it to this group of friends.

Dave Wilson: Because what would you do? What do you mean blow up?

Kathryn Voetberg: I would just react. I was used to just showing every emotion on my sleeve. He tells me what he's thinking, and I tell him what I'm thinking.

Ann Wilson: That's exactly what I did, Kathryn. Like what's wrong with that? Isn't that the best way to do it?

Kathryn Voetberg: It's like we're just being real clear with each other here. That was not a wise or thoughtful form of communication, especially when you're dealing with your spouse. This person means the most to you. When they're choosing to open up to you about something or share anything, regardless of how trivial it might seem, that's a sacred opportunity that you have to be there for that person.

I didn't value that. I didn't treasure that. All of those conversations were being taken away from me, and I felt very much on the outside our first six months of marriage. I really didn't like him hanging out with his friends. They didn't like me because I was the bad guy who didn't like him hanging out with his friends.

In his communication too, Elisha was trying to please both parties, so he'd kind of make me the bad guy to the friends and the friends the bad guy to me. It was just a cycle of communication and ultimately me realizing that communication doesn't always mean speaking. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just sit there and listen to the other person to kind of grow through that and to become that safe place.

Dave Wilson: That same for you, Elisha?

Elisha Voetberg: On the other side of that issue was me. If Kathryn owns that for herself, then I certainly need to say I was extremely wrong early on in not leaving and cleaving. You hear that term, and "two becoming one." You're thinking, what does that mean? It means that.

How cool is it that God does His own math? Two become one, it's a mystery. He's thinking also I'm three persons, figure that out. What about the individual? Where's the individual in all this? He's saying, "No, you're one." I think I really neglected owning that and acknowledging that and living into that.

It's one thing to say it with your words, but then to actually say, "What would this look like, and how would I act upon this?" I think that would mean open communication that I go to Kathryn with my thoughts. I go to her with my fears, my insecurities, my ideas, things that I'm excited about, things that I'm nervous about.

I did not do that. Instead, I really dishonored Kathryn, not necessarily behind her back, but just in the way I would speak about her to others. It's so easy to do. It's so common in our culture to talk in a disparaging way about your spouse. Everybody will get a good laugh out of it. "Oh yeah, the old ball and chain. Happy wife, happy life, whatever it takes."

That's extremely dishonoring to the institution that God has called sacred. I didn't respect the institution early on in my marriage. I saw Kathryn as just my life partner, she was my lover, she was my friend, but I didn't see it as being this covenantal bond where we are one. What happens to me spiritually is going to affect her. What happens to her spiritually is going to affect us. I really regret not acknowledging that and not having that open line of communication with her first and foremost.

Ann Wilson: Many people won't put those pieces together. Like you were leaving and cleaving, often we think of our parents. We're leaving our parents, but you're saying, "I also needed to put Kathryn first even before my friends," to leave them in a way—not to leave their friendship, but to put Kathryn before them.

Elisha Voetberg: Absolutely. That's exactly right.

Dave Wilson: I think it's interesting to hear you, Kathryn, say how you responded when Elisha would share things. I've said from the stage often in marriage conferences, right or wrong, I've said that often for a man to share something vulnerable or a weakness is not easy and scary.

When your husband comes to you as his partner and shares something that you even know he never—a lot of wives will say he never talks, and then he finally does. That guy's taking a—you may not know it, but for the guy, it was. "This is not easy for me to say, but I'm saying it to my wife because we're one and you're my soulmate."

Then he says it, and there's silence. Sometimes she responds like, "That's it? That's all you got?"

Ann Wilson: Or she's mad.

Dave Wilson: Or she downplays it or blows up or whatever. I've often said to wives, that guy's not coming back to you. That was a big risk for him. You don't think it was, but for him it was. He got not reinforcement; he got the opposite. He's taking that somewhere else.

Could be scarier, could be another woman, could be buddies. Again, wives are like, "What? I'm supposed to applaud something that's lame?" Yeah, pretty much. Applaud it because he's going to feel like she's a safe place. I don't know what it is for women, but I know for guys I can relate to what you're saying. If I would do that with Ann and she didn't, I would be like, "Okay, I'm done. I tried." I'm not saying it's the wife's fault that the husband's quiet, but sometimes that's what's going on.

Ann Wilson: Sometimes we need to just sit and listen or ask really good questions. I would say that I often reacted instead of responded. If we can do that as both a husband and wife and as parents, especially with our kids because it's so easy to react, we're on the whole next page of becoming the people that God created us to be.

Dave Wilson: It was great to have Elisha and Kathryn Voetberg on the show with us today at FamilyLife Today. By the way, you can get their books. Actually, it's two books. One is called *After the Baby* for her, and the other is *After the Baby* for him. They're both at our link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com.

Ann Wilson: If something on today's episode just clicked with you, we want you to know that you are not alone.

Dave Wilson: Every single marriage has its fair share of just highs, but also lows. You've heard our highs, and you've heard a lot of our lows. But the question is, where do we go to get help? That was our question. Let me tell you, we are so thankful that you listened today.

We have a resource that we would love to share with you. It's a free guide that will be filled with helpful marriage wisdom from real-life couples who have been right where you are.

Ann Wilson: You can grab your copy today at familylifetoday.com/marriagehelp. Again, did you hear that? Go to familylifetoday.com/marriagehelp for your free guide full of marriage tips.

Dave Wilson: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry. 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.