FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

I definitely think that you have to speak up. You have to speak up. I don't want to sound cliché, that a closed mouth doesn't get fed, but it's causing the marriage to implode. It causes your spirit to implode. Nobody has to know anything, but you owe it to yourself.

And if any children, if you have any, to your family that's watching you, they need you to stay together. They need you guys to figure it out, you know?

So I think that it's important to first, bring in Christ and pray about it, but then secondly, within your level of comfort, reach out to somebody.

Speaker 2

Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us atfamilylife today.com. this is Family Life Today.

Speaker 4

Foreign.

Speaker 2

May 17, 1980. A week before our wedding. No, you know What? It was May 10, 1980.

Speaker 3

Rollback day.

Speaker 2

May 10, 1980. Two weeks for our wedding, we go to the Family Life weekend, remember?

Speaker 1

Okay?

Speaker 2

Because we were told you can't get married until you know God's plan for marriage. And they're going to teach you that that weekend.

And so here I want to ask you. Don't look at your notes. I didn't put it in there. But.

And we've taught it now for 30 years. But back then we taught God's purpose for marriage is three M's. Here we go. I'm a guy, loves alliteration.

Speaker 3

I thought it was R. Here we go. Reflect God's image. Oh, no. Mirror. Mirror God's image.

Speaker 2

Mirror God's image. Well, here's the thing. The 3Ms are no longer the 3M's because now we teach it a little different. Same concepts.

But back then we said from God's word, the purpose of marriage is to mirror God's image, to reflect to the world who Jesus is. God is to mutually complete one another, sharpen one another, to become like Christ and then to multiply a godly legacy, which we were saying repeats two out of three.

Speaker 1

That's how you did pretty good. You did pretty good to give that.

Speaker 3

Talk more than I did.

Speaker 2

I know I gave it more than you did, so I should know. But anyway, we've got Howard and Danielle Taylor in the studio. And you guys, you have a whole workbook on the purposes marriage. That's why I brought it up.

Speaker 3

It's called the fundamentals of Marriage. And I like this. 8 essential practices of Successful Couples. And you guys, I feel like you have that same Passion that we have, like, marriage matters.

Speaker 4

Absolutely.

Speaker 3

We need to know why God instituted marriage. And you have two boys in a.

Speaker 2

Ministry called Marriage on Deck. What is that?

Speaker 1

Marriage on Deck.

Speaker 4

So Marriage on Deck is birthed out of our desire to mitigate divorce. Like, we started seeing what we call carnage around us. You know, we're going along in our marriage, and all of a sudden we see a friend get a divorce, a cousin get a divorce, a family member get a divorce, and we're just like, what is going on?

So opposed to just sitting back on the defensive, we said, it's time for us to go on the offensive and not just sit on the sidelines and do something about it. And that looked like maybe sharing our testimony of why we felt very passionately about our own marriage and some of the principles that we're using to sustain what we felt was a healthy marriage, but we thought it was to be assumed until we saw certain things happening.

A lot of that was biblically based. So it was helping couples get married and stay married using biblical principles. That's the kind of pitch behind now.

Speaker 2

What'S on deck mean? Part of me, you know, went to baseball.

Speaker 1

We talked about this because he said, on deck.

Speaker 2

I know Howard's a basketball guy, though.

Speaker 4

I don't know.

Speaker 1

He said, being on deck means that you're up to bat. And so we're like, maybe marriage on Deck could be for people who are up to getting married or, to me, taking the baseball out of it.

You're just. Your marriage is up. It's on the forefront. It's on top. You know, it's here and it's in the present.

So if you're already married or if you're going to get married, we want to encourage you and uplift you in your relationship.

Speaker 3

Well, share your story a little bit with us. How you guys met, how this came about.

Speaker 1

Howard and I met in 2001 at Cal State Fullerton. I met him at a Bible study. I came in late with my friend, not because I wanted to be late, but because we were coming all the way from Rialto.

So we came in late. I sat in the back, and as I was sitting in the Bible study, I realized there's this guy in the front answering all the questions.

Speaker 3

Oh, you didn't think, who's that cute guy? You thought, who's this smart guy?

Speaker 4

Yeah, it was the Bible.

Speaker 1

Who's the guy that knows the word of God? We were, like, 18 and 19, but I was so impressed. I was newly saved, like, two years I was teaching Sunday school at church, and so I was like, wow, this guy has a good command of the word.

And then our teacher was telling us, oh, turn here. He's like, knew exactly where the book was at. Impressive.

Speaker 4

He was watching for a minute.

Speaker 1

That was impressive to me. I was just like, okay, I need to see what he looks like. So then I got a chance to see what he looked like. And I said, oh, he looks good. I need to, you know, get closer to him.

Speaker 4

This is all in Bible study.

Speaker 1

All in Bible study.

Speaker 2

And you didn't know any of this was happening. You're just up there.

Speaker 4

So, true story. When she came in late, I noticed her hair. It's so funny that you started talking about her hair while you were off air. I thought to myself, wow, that's a pretty girl. I have a fraternal twin who had introduced me to her in what we would call the quad section of our college campus. As twin boys, if your brother introduced you to a young lady, you paid zero attention. So, I didn't realize I had met her before, but I noticed her come in late, and I thought, this is a pretty young lady.

She came in with her friend, and during that session, Danielle was noticing me. I noticed her after the fact. I had told myself that I was going to speak to that young lady after the Bible study. Like a church kid would—unlike Daniel, I was raised in a church—I had my highlighter and my little notes. I approached her and we sparked up a conversation. I basically said, you know, if you want to call me sometime, I took out my church lighter and I...

Speaker 3

Wrote, wait a minute, you want to call me sir?

Speaker 4

It gets good. This was providential, though. So I write my cell phone number on an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper, really big piece of paper with a yellow highlighter. And Danielle took it politely.

Once we sprung up conversation, it was on her birthday, and we sprung up conversation, she eventually called me. When she called me, she eventually told me we had one of those moments where you talked for like four hours that night. So that happened to us.

She told me that she had been talking to a young man who was a police officer at the time, and a lot of guys had been approaching her. She said, the next guy who asked me for my number, I'm gonna tell him basically where to shove it.

It was providential that I didn't. She thought that was kind of uncanny that I didn't ask for her number. I wouldn't typically give a girl my number, but I felt like with her I should just give her my number.

Speaker 1

Really, the spirit led you to do that?

Speaker 3

That was a God thing.

Speaker 4

It was providential. It was a God thing. It just went right. Went well with me because she was the great. She was the greatest gift.

I was 18, Danielle was 19. I was an incoming freshman. To make it short, Danielle was an outgoing senior. At 19 years old, she would go in and get her degree.

Speaker 2

You're done with College.

Speaker 4

At 19, 19, she graduated high school. At 16, she got her master's at really?

Speaker 1

Thank you, my love.

Speaker 4

I mean, I met somebody who was truly incredible, and she would go on to be my first professional mentor. Like we, me, my buddies, I have a fraternal twin. My college roommates, Dayell, would come to our apartment and help us with our schoolwork. She was in her career. It was just. She was incredibly kind and just amazing.

For me, I was raised by a single mother who was from Illinois and a very intelligent woman herself. So I just thought Daniel was. I was attracted to how incredibly kind and intelligent, driven she was as an 18-year-old man. And the rest was history.

Speaker 2

I mean, were you married before you graduated or how much did you date?

Speaker 4

My senior year.

Speaker 1

Oh, I was.

Speaker 4

So I was a double major, so it took me six years to graduate. I graduated in my sixth year.

We got married in 2005. We met in 2001, dated for four years, and got married on July 30, 2005. After that, we moved into our house in Victorville, California, and away we went.

Danielle was out of school while I was finishing my studies.

Speaker 3

You had much marriage mentoring training? You had nothing.

Speaker 4

We're from broken families.

Speaker 1

Marriage mentoring on what not to do.

Speaker 4

Yeah, that's a good way to.

Speaker 2

From your family?

Speaker 1

From my parents, yes. My parents were married. They got divorced when I was in ninth grade, like about 13. That was my dad's second marriage. That was my mom's second marriage.

And then she got married again after that. But they're still together. They got married the same year as us. Thank you, Jesus.

They're still together? Yes. So no, we didn't have good marriage examples or role models. I didn't want to get married.

Speaker 3

You didn't because of what you've seen.

Speaker 1

Right. It just didn't look fun. It didn't look edifying. It didn't look productive. It just didn't seem like fun at all.

Speaker 3

Like why, you know, so how did it go when you got married?

Speaker 4

Well, I think it. We had a very great start and I would say we still love our marriage. We have peaks and valleys in our marriage, but it was incredible. The reason why it was an incredible start for us is that we had no trepidation to get married. We didn't have great examples, like Danielle from a broken home, as well.

When we started dating, we both had a very strong spiritual base. What was unique about our connection is that it was very much based on our spiritual relationship with Christ. We made a commitment to read the Word and pray daily. During the four years that we dated, we were both virgins, and we shared a like-mindedness about saving ourselves for marriage. At least I did. Danielle was not really planning to get married, but she was saving herself nonetheless.

Speaker 1

I was going to save and hold.

Speaker 4

On until the time was right, I guess for Danielle.

Speaker 2

But you wanted to be single.

Speaker 1

I was more like career driven. So maybe single, maybe date.

Speaker 4

But I knew I wanted to be married since I was 12 because my mom and dad never married. My father was out of the home at five, and so I felt like all the perils that I faced in my life were because of the absence of a father and the absence of having a stable family environment. And so to me, I was like, I need that.

In sports, I always saw a father show up at the gym with their kids, and it assisted them with the coaching relationship. All these little nuances I was watching, plus my mom—the greatest gift she gave me, my brother, and my sister—was getting us into a good church. The pastor really affectionately loved his wife, and his brother-in-law loved his wife as well. So I would watch these guys just love on their wives and raise their families, and I knew that's how it should be.

Speaker 3

You had a vision for what it came.

Speaker 4

I had a vision of what life should be, even though I did not see it in the home. And so when I met whoever I was going to meet, I knew I wanted to marry him.

Speaker 2

You're listening to Family Life today. I'm Dave Wilson and before we continue our conversation, let me just say this.

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Speaker 3

And we'd be so honored to have you on the journey with us. We really would. So here's the question. Will you join us today?

Speaker 2

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So as you start, you know, moving on in your marriage and obviously having kids, how did you start to develop these fundamentals that you call the fundamentals of marriage?

Speaker 1

We started to develop the fundamentals from day one. We established in dating, right. We had our 10 commandments of dating type things that.

Speaker 2

That you made your own ten commandments?

Speaker 1

We made our own ten commandments, yes. We, you know, a lot of them.

Speaker 4

One was no makeups to break up.

Speaker 1

No makeups to break up. If you get comfortable breaking up and we get married, you'll be comfortable getting a divorce thinking that it's okay because you're used to make breaking up all the time.

Speaker 4

Yep, Yep.

Speaker 1

If we got into an argument, which we have plenty of, you cannot bring up the past. We both can be the victim at the same time.

So if I'm telling you about a problem I have, you can't turn around and say, "Well, you're saying this, but my problem is..." But it's like, no, I'm the victim right now.

So you need to listen to what I have to say. We need to address the current problem for sure, not whatever you have going on, because you missed your opportunity to say whatever you had to say.

Speaker 4

Then we had, like, the thou shalt not kill one. But for us, it was like, you can't tell me to shut up. It was very powerful. So, like, we could never tell each other to shut up. We can never hang up on the phone.

And those things were birthed out of Danielle and I probably should have broke up in our first three months. Our communication was terrible. Horrible. We were both young. We were immature. We argue. We call them darts now, but there were jabs and punches then.

Speaker 3

So you used your words as weapons.

Speaker 4

Oh, for sure. We weaponized our words. Cause we. That was our example. When my mom and dad did talk, they argued.

Speaker 1

Yes. Same here.

Speaker 4

So when we met each other, we loved each other and liked each other, but we were gonna have a good brouhaha.

And so with our words, we came to this kind of defining moment right around the time Danielle was gonna graduate, where, hey, if we are going...

Speaker 1

To be together, we need some boundaries.

Speaker 4

We need boundaries. And so we sat and we talked about it, and we put in biblical principles, soft answer, turns away wrath, and all these little things.

And we created our little boundary sheet, and we stuck to it. So it made us very disciplined.

Like, I want to hang up on you right now. But I'm just going to breathe into this phone until we mutually get off the phone.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 4

That was huge for our discipline. Yes. Because as fiery as we were, we taught each other that we were worth it. We knew that we were worth it because we just wouldn't cross that boundary.

And if ever, because nobody's perfect, we did flirt with it or cross, it was like, you have to come off your high horse and apologize. Right. You just broke it.

It seems, I would say, elementary in some respects and fundamental in some respects, but it was. It's huge in our marriage right now.

Speaker 1

Right. That's what I was going to say. Following those. Throughout our relationship, a lot of people, even though we're really young, a lot of young and young in marriage, a lot of people will come to us asking for advice. And you guys look so happy, and you look like you guys really like each other and that you respect each other. Although we may have been married five or 10 years, we're coming to talk to you guys. You only been married one year. And we just couldn't understand why are you asking us? You know, what do we know? We don't know anything.

But as time went on and more and more people came to us and we saw, like, Howard was mentioning our family, our cousins and their relationship and family members' relationships falling apart. In the midst of all of this, in our careers, we had started a couple of businesses on the side, and things weren't. Things were going great, like, financially, but spiritually with our family, things just was not good.

So fast forward to 2016. Usually at the end of every year, we go on a fast and ask God, like, what do you want us to do for the following year? But we have been so, like, on fire with, like, growing our careers and advancing and making money and buying houses and just doing all this stuff that seems like that's what you do when you have a degree and you get a good job. Right. So we went on this fast. Like, we're gonna wake up every morning at 3am for a week and pray and seek God's face to find out what does God want us to do for 2017.

Speaker 3

I underlined this in your workbook.

Speaker 2

You both woke up every morning at 3am why not 6am because we wanted.

Speaker 1

To have a sacrifice for God. Yeah.

Speaker 3

Like, I have this underline, like, wait, what? You got up at 3am I was gonna ask the same question of, like.

Speaker 1

Why 3am we just wanted to feel like a sacrifice. Like, you're exhausted, you're tired.

Speaker 3

Like, we just set the alarm.

Speaker 1

We Set the alarm, got up, and.

Speaker 2

You'Re not eating food.

Speaker 1

We were eating.

Speaker 4

I think this was. It wasn't a solemn fast. So one of the things that we did is when we would fast, it wouldn't always be a solemn food fast. It would be, what do we feel like we need to starve our flesh in most at that moment?

So sometimes our fasts were really tailored to Danielle and I. And so what we felt in that season, we were giving everything else that Danielle mentioned—our first, like business, our first everything in life, our relationship, our careers, our first.

But we weren't inconveniencing ourselves and stopping our schedule abruptly for Christ.

Speaker 3

Would you say those things were an idol?

Speaker 4

I would say so.

Speaker 3

You would?

Speaker 4

Yeah, I think.

Speaker 3

And yet they're good things.

Speaker 1

They're good things. But we were just like, oh, man, we were running towards success for sure, like a sprint.

Speaker 3

Which of you said like, hey, how about if we do this fast and get up at 3am so we fasted.

Speaker 4

We fast every year. But I think the 3am God dropped in my spirit that we needed to make this extra push and sacrifice. And so we knew we were gonna do the fast. But the 3am challenge was like, let's challenge ourselves to wake up at 3am and see if God talks and just give Him this intentional time. And so we did it.

At the top of our fast, we always say, okay, we have a little list of what we would like God to talk to us about or get answers on in some way. Then we just say, God, have your way. What are we missing? What are our blind spots? What do you want to say?

At the end of this fast, we really wanted to know what our life's mission was spiritually. We had not found our spiritual purpose as a couple. We knew all these head things that we wanted to do, but we hadn't found our spiritual purpose. So that was our ask: what are we going to do? I remember creeping up on the final day of the fast and not feeling like we got the answer.

Speaker 1

How many days was this?

Speaker 2

Seven.

Speaker 3

Seven days.

Speaker 1

This happens to us all the time. God does not speak until the last day for that passion.

Speaker 4

It's like he tests if we're going to push to do it. So on the seventh day, he told us at work, separate days, Danielle, at a separate time from me, we had our son. God told her that we need to go on social media and just start talking about marriage, our marriage.

And God told me I was a hotel general manager in my career, a hotel executive. So I was sitting in my hotel office and God told me, like, you guys are gonna have to talk about your marriage. You're not doing it on Facebook Live.

At that time, we weren't, like, show social media type people whatsoever. Matter of fact, we felt like it was cringe-worthy. So we didn't want to do anything like that.

We came home that day, and Danielle said, "God just... I think I got the answer." I said, "God told you we need to go on social media and talk."

Speaker 1

About her marriage, Facebook Live.

Speaker 4

And she's like, that is exactly what God told me.

Speaker 1

Wow.

Speaker 2

You said that to her?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

I just told you this.

Speaker 4

It was so clear. It wasn't audible, but it felt like it was audible. And we have a very strong spiritual connection from when we dated. We laid a strong foundation. And so she. When I said it, she was like, that's what he said.

Speaker 1

That's what he said.

Speaker 4

And so we started practicing that night on our phone. We couldn't even say our name. All right, go.

Speaker 1

And she was like, he's like, what's your name? I'm like.

Speaker 4

And they got it. We got it together and launched Marriage on Deck.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 4

Just talking about to everyday couples about everyday marriage issues. So a lot of people suffer in secret in their marriage because they don't want to shame their spouse.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 4

And so by us just talking on social media because we're transparent. We were talking about. We were letting that thing hang out about our own lives because we knew.

Speaker 1

It could help people.

Speaker 4

We knew it would help, and it was worth us. Was. Was worth it to be.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 4

Honest about.

Speaker 2

I mean, what would you say to a couple listening right now that's suffering in silence? What do they. What should they do?

Speaker 1

I definitely think that you have to speak up. You have to speak up. I don't want to sound cliché that a closed mouth doesn't get fed, but it doesn't do any disservice by keeping it a secret. It's only. It's like implementing on the inside for sure to implode. It causes your spirit to implode.

I think that, you know, there are things people could go to counselors that won't tell your business. Your family and friends don't have to know that you need counseling. Like, nobody has to know anything, but you owe it to yourself.

And if any children, if you have any, to your family that's watching you. Because there are people in our family watching our marriages that will never say anything, never applaud you.

Speaker 4

Absolutely.

Speaker 1

They need you to stay together. They need you guys to figure it out, you know? So I think that it's important to first bring in Christ and pray about it, but then secondly, within your level of comfort, reach out to somebody that.

Speaker 3

You trust, share what's going on.

Speaker 4

Well, the symptoms aren't going to go away. You know, a lot of things that we face in marriage, we liken it to cancer or sicknesses. Like, you could avoid not talking about it, but you're showing symptoms; they're showing signs. Most of what we do, a lot of marriage coaching, and most of what people talk about and complain about are symptoms of a larger issue that they're not addressing.

Then eventually, they get to the doctor's office because they can't walk or they can't talk, or it's the end of the line. And they say we're divorcing for irreconcilable differences. When, if you would address it early on, like they always encourage you to do physically, hey, get to the doctor early so that it's not something that's fatal. Likewise, in marriage, we feel shamed and fearful to address things that are causing us to have symptoms that we're blaming our wives for and our husbands for.

When really, if you go get help from what Daniel's speaking to—a trained professional, whether it's a Christian counselor or Christian coach—we always will say, pray about it and read your word and get deep into your word. But we would say bring a partner alongside of that, an accountability partner, whether it's your pastor at a church.

Oftentimes, when you hold things in, you think that just you're going through it or just your husband does it or just your wife has this issue. The reality is, when you talk about marriage to somebody, nine times out of ten, they've either gone through it or somebody that they know has gone through it. And that makes you feel like you're a part of a fraternity in some respects.

It takes some of that, what we feel is a tactic of the enemy, takes some of that secret shame off the issue, and you could begin to deal with the actual root issue of the problem. Then you see the symptoms begin to dissipate, but you can't hold it in, because in that, your symptoms are going to get worse and you're going to begin to target each other and blame each other, and ultimately, marriage does, to Daniel's point, implode.

So you gotta talk about it. Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I always say that if you are struggling with something in the dark, whether it's personal sin or like a marriage secret, suffering, the dark wins the second you bring it out of the dark into the light. Now healing can begin. But if you never tell anybody.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

You know, and family life has so many resources that put people in small groups with other couples. Like when you're saying that, Howard, I was like, yeah. When you sit in a group and you go through something like the art of marriage or vertical marriage or low life. Yeah.

Speaker 1

Or this.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And people start sharing their stories, that's probably the biggest thing happens in that group. You go, we're not the only ones.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

And then you, like, talk to them afterwards as you're grabbing a cookie. And the next thing you know, you've got a friend that you can be honest with and you can make this journey together.

Speaker 3

So good. I'm so inspired by you guys, too. Even your.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 3

You're fasting and you're praying. You're getting up. Like, if we put that effort into our marriage, God always hears.

Speaker 1

Amen. Always hears those prayers.

Speaker 3

Amen.

Speaker 1

Absolutely.

Speaker 3

We've been talking with Howard and Danielle Taylor, and their book is called the Fundamentals of eight Essential Practices of Successful Couples and who doesn't want to be successful?

Speaker 2

Yeah, we all do. And you can get the link in the show notes@familylifetoday.com if you need help in your marriage, and we all need help, we have put together some of our best material just for you. It's@familylife.com marriage help, and it's free. We just want to help you. It's there for you. Go there now and get help.

Speaker 3

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