Focus on the Family

Ashley Willis: I mean there's many, many things we want to leave behind as a legacy, but I think the biggest one is that marriage is awesome. Even in the hard moments, marriage is wonderful. It is a gift and there is hope even in the hard times. That's something that we always want to point to.

But I think for every couple, just coming back to that reason that God brought them together. Because in hard seasons, especially those broken seasons we talked about, we lose sight of that because we're just in critical condition, we're just trying to survive. But in order to thrive, we have to think about that bigger picture.

John Fuller: Welcome to Focus on the Family's weekend broadcast. We hope the following program will challenge you and encourage you in your faith journey. That's Ashley Willis and she and her husband, Dave, join us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. We're glad you're here. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, here's a book title that should grab everybody: *Do Marriage Better*. Who doesn't want that book? I have prepped for the show, and there is so much good stuff in here. Here's the best part: the subtitle, *Seven Simple Shifts for a Deeper Connection*.

Our guests are talking about little things you can do that make big differences. And I think that's been my observation about marriage. When Jean and I hit a tough spot, it's usually because one of us has said something a little off that sets the other one askew. Why did you say it like that? That kind of hurt my feelings, whatever it might be.

And if we could be a little more thoughtful about how we communicate and in other areas of our lives, how we interact with each other, man, you could have a marriage that is the best. And that's what we're aiming for today with our guests.

John Fuller: Dave and Ashley Willis are conference speakers and relationship coaches and podcast hosts. They've been in full-time marriage ministry for quite a long time now. They've got four boys and they've written a terrific book called, as you said Jim, *Do Marriage Better: Seven Simple Shifts for a Deeper Connection*. We want to encourage you to go to focusonthefamily.com/weekend to get a copy of the book and learn more about the Willis' ministry.

Jim Daly: Dave and Ashley, welcome back. Good to have you here.

Ashley Willis: So glad to be here.

Dave Willis: Always. It's good to see you guys.

Jim Daly: I was serious about that in terms of the seven simple shifts. That's what you guys are talking about. These simple shifts. It can sound too easy. So let's cover those seven just quickly and then we'll begin to dive into them and hopefully couples can walk away from this and go, "Oh man, we can make a 20 percent improvement in our marital relationship." That would be good.

Dave Willis: Absolutely that would be good. And that was really the heart of the book. Sometimes we overcomplicate things. I overcomplicate things. You think you’ve got to lose 100 pounds. It’s like, well maybe you could start just by losing a couple. Baby steps.

In marriage it's the same way. We think I’ve got to lose 100 pounds in our marriage to get where we want it to be. Maybe just take small bite-sized steps to make simple shifts that over time really will lead to those big payoffs in the areas, the shifts that we're talking about are just those main areas that affect every marriage.

Areas like money, communication, sex, parenting, legacy. These are things that all couples talk about and deal with. We've just put together some tools based on working with couples for many years and of course studying what the Bible has to say about marriage and realizing God doesn't want it to be complicated. It doesn't mean that marriage was always easy, but it's not as complicated as we make it. If we'll do these little shifts, it can make a big difference.

Jim Daly: We hit some of those themes as people were listening. It went by fast, but I'm sure they caught it. But Ashley, when we start looking at it, communication is really tricky for all kinds of reasons. So in looking at that, what's one first step a couple can take to start talking in a way that really builds each other up?

Ashley Willis: That's such a good question. We can relate too. We've been married almost 25 years and it's been a journey. But early in our marriage, I really made the mistake that a lot of couples make in assuming that Dave processes things the way I do and that he should communicate the way I do.

And really we constantly found ourselves bumping heads. Just to give an example, I tend to process things as I'm talking. I'm talking and I'm processing and I'm expecting him to do the same. So if I had an issue and I would bring it to Dave, I would start talking about it and just kind of going through it, just drilling him with all these different things that I wanted to address.

He would look at me kind of stunned. Then I would get to the end of my tirade and he would just stare at me and he wouldn't say anything. I took it as, "Oh you don't care. You don't have anything to say, you don't care." So then I would kind of go into the other room.

He would come back later after maybe 30 minutes and he's like, "Ashley, I do care. I just needed a time to think. It's overwhelming. I care more than you could imagine, I just had to process this."

Dave Willis: But she'd watched so many Hallmark movies.

Ashley Willis: Guilty.

Dave Willis: Where the guy has a script and knows what to say every time. The good-looking lumberjack always knows what to say and he's so sensitive and kind. I didn't have a script. I'm like, "I don't know what to do here."

I'm also very literal too. One of the things we had to learn in marriage is she would say things to try to soften a request, but really I would take it literally. She would say things like, "Hey Dave, when you get a minute, could you bring me this?" And I thought that meant at any point in the day when I get a minute.

Young husbands listen to me, if your wife says when you get a minute, it means now. It means do it now. No one told me this. She would say, "We need to do some... we need to mow the yard." And I would think how are we going to mow the yard? It's not a two-person job. We have a push mower.

But I would wait until she was ready to do it with me and she would say, "Why isn't the yard mowed?" And I'd say, "Well I thought you wanted to do it together." She'd say, "Why would we do it together?" I'd say, "Exactly." And so when your wife says we need to do something, guys, it probably means a gentle way of her saying, "Hey, you need to do this." Or, "Can you please do this?"

She was being so polite and kind and softening the language, but I was just a Neanderthal that took everything completely literally. And it took us a while just to connect on simple things like that, which we laugh about now, of course. And then as marriage goes on and communication gets more nuanced and the issues you face might get a little more complex.

Jim Daly: So a couple right now is going, "Okay, so that's where we're at." What is that first step? What is something they can do to either say it differently?

Ashley Willis: No, that's true because I know they're like, "Well, lawnmower issues are not our thing." I think where we need to start, really we need to come at each other with curiosity and compassion. If we can start there and not come at each other with criticism because I found myself in those hard years of communication always really having this critical eye.

When I shifted to having curiosity like, "Well, why is he not speaking? Is it that maybe I've just landed these things on him that he needs to think about? Or maybe I'm not being clear about this?" Because clarity is kindness. Maybe I just need to be a little more clear.

When we have curiosity, it's really hard to be angry about that because we're curious instead of critical. So even just that simple way of having curiosity, it changes how we talk to each other. Have a curious tone too. It's not just the words you say, it's how you say them. When you're curious in your tone, it's a little softer because you're trying to inquire about what's going on instead of assuming what's going on.

Jim Daly: These are all great concepts. Let me ask you this. You relate to the talk you hear in your head. Again, we learn things, family of origin, all those things that we grow up with. If you had a negative parent, for example, when you hear your spouse say something like, "The chicken seems a little cool," or whatever it might be.

And I know a lot of guys are doing the cooking now so I don't mean it in that way, it's just whoever says something as an observation can be taken as a demeaning comment. Like you're attacking me and my worth, that I'm not good enough, I didn't do it well enough. Speak to that idea of the words we hear in our head and how do we arrest those so that we don't let that fly off the handle inside.

Dave Willis: Ashley's so good at this. In addition to her long resume already, she's also a very gifted biblical counselor and works with people and helps them with these kind of issues all the time. Because the voices in our head, that inner monologue, that inner soundtrack, it impacts everything that we do.

A lot of times when your spouse responds in a way where they're hurt by something you said or did, it goes much deeper than what you said or did. It goes to a place of woundedness that they have probably from long before you even came into the picture, where they're carrying this deep insecurity around a certain area that came from growing up in a home maybe where like you said there was potentially a negative parent or they felt like as a kid they couldn't do anything right and they're carrying that into the marriage.

You could say something not meaning anything by it, but it touches a wound from way back then. So when your spouse responds in a way where it doesn't seem like it fits, you said something that wasn't meant to cause offense and they seem to get offended or emotional, instead of getting defensive yourself, like she said earlier, get curious. Lean into that and say, "Let's talk about that. I didn't mean to hurt you, but let's talk about the nerve that that struck because I want to help. I want to help not do that again on my part, but I also want to help you process and work through whatever the root cause of that wound might be."

Jim Daly: It sounds like diffusing. You know, that's the word picture I think of: the bomb, the emotional bomb being diffused with great craft.

Dave Willis: Cut the right wire.

Jim Daly: Cut the right wire. I don't know which one to cut. Ashley, let me ask you this. You mentioned tone a while ago. I love the story you had in the book about your dog. Jean and I were laughing when we read that because we could see your boys. Describe for the audience what happened because this is something I'm going to try.

Dave Willis: Chi-Chi, the Chiweenie.

Ashley Willis: Oh my gosh, well we have our little dog Chi-Chi. She's a Chiweenie supposedly. That's a Chihuahua and a Dachshund mix. And our boys, they say sweet things to Chi-Chi all day but they were wanting to see if they said mean things in a nice tone, if she would have the same response.

And she did. So they'd be like, "Chi-Chi, you're the ugliest dog there is on earth and we really don't like you, Chi-Chi." And Chi-Chi would wiggle over to them and she's just smiling and wagging her tail and it's like she doesn't care at all what they're saying. Then they'd say nice things in a mean tone. Like, "You're the best dog ever and we love you so much!" And she'd get scared.

So tone made the difference, not the words. Exactly. Exactly. So we, as human beings, we need to pay attention to our tone because it matters. Sometimes we can find ourselves in what I like to refer to as a sandpaper season where maybe our spouse didn't do a thing, but we are in a rough season where we already feel wounded, we feel raw. So they could just say something that isn't even meant to be hurtful, but we take it that way because maybe the tone hit us.

Jim Daly: How do we diffuse that? Because I've had that experience where I'm just saying something almost like a journalist would say: "Four people went off the road yesterday and struck a pole and everyone survived and everyone's good." "Why would you say that to me like that?" and I'm going, "What did I just say?"

So how do we honor our spouse to give us that feedback of how that comment may have wounded them? And then in the inside our head-talk is, "What in the world is she talking about? All I did was state a fact. I didn't have a tone with it at all." Where's the referee call in that? How do I back off of that and say, "Okay, obviously it didn't work for her." What do you coach couples with in that regard?

Ashley Willis: I love that you said you’ve got to get a hold of your own self-talk because I do think if we're just stewing all day and having assumptions like, "Well she's just emotional and she just doesn't get me and what's wrong with her?" If we're just stewing on that all day, when we have that next conversation with our spouse we're going to come off really negatively too because we've assumed the worst of them.

So first of all we've got to rein in those thoughts and assume the best and then ask questions. Ask questions if you don't know. If you're like really like what's going on there? I would go up to your spouse and say, "Listen, I can tell that really struck a nerve in you. I want you to know I'm for you and not against you. What went on there? Like what did I say or do or maybe it wasn't even me? What's going on here?"

Dave Willis: In the love chapter, 1st Corinthians 13, when the Apostle Paul gives us this great list of what love is, the very first adjective he uses is patient. Love is patient. Love is patient, love is kind. It goes on from there.

And I think that's the part he put that first because that's the part we struggle with the most, is the patience of really taking a breath and leaning in and staying curious. Ephesians 4:32 talks about be kind and compassionate to one another and then it uses a word that I love: tenderhearted.

Forgiving one another and I think that tenderness in marriage is usually what we need to lean into when there's a pattern of offense. How can I in my tone, in my words, in my pursuit of my spouse, in my thoughtfulness, just be tender with them? Not rough with them, but just tender with them.

And we all know how to do this because you look at somebody that might be harsh with their spouse and they think, "Well I'm just not a flowery person with my words." And then they'll get their dog and they'll be like, "I love you so much, you're so precious." So they clearly know how to be tender. We all do, but we just need to direct that where it matters the most and be tender and patient with our spouse.

Ashley Willis: And I want to say this too, just practically. Take at least five seconds. Just count to five, take a deep breath before you say anything. And if after that five you're still rearing to go, ready to say something mean, count to five again.

And if you can't get yourself regulated, dismiss yourself and say, "I love you. I'm going to go take a minute. I'll be right back, I promise I won't leave you hanging, I just need a minute." Because so many times we just don't advocate, we don't take the time because we let the emotions take over. But we need to take the time because our relationship is worth it.

Jim Daly: Hey parents, Adventures in Odyssey has been helping kids like yours form relationships with Christ for almost 40 years. Now the animated Adventures in Odyssey film *Journey into the Impossible* will reach a new generation of families.

But we need your help to finish the film and launch it in theaters. Your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar before May 1st. See the trailer and donate today at focusonthefamily.com/impossible.

Jim Daly: Your marriage can be healed. A Hope Restored marriage intensive from Focus on the Family can transform you and your spouse's relationship in just a few days.

Guest (Female): We'll go to this thing, but this is it. If this doesn't work, we're done. What we have now, it's way more than we ever had before and that I ever even dreamed of in the marriage.

John Fuller: Discover more at hoperestored.com. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family's weekend broadcast. Let's resume now with the balance of today's program.

Voiceover: Marriage is a journey with lots of ups and downs. So navigate all the twists and turns with *Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage*, a podcast from Focus on the Family. I'm Aaron Smalley, and I co-host the podcast with my husband, Dr. Greg Smalley. Each episode will help you tackle problems you may be facing or just help make your relationship even sweeter. Listen to *Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage* and other podcasts from Focus on the Family at focusonthefamily.com/podcast.

Jim Daly: Let's move to prioritizing your marriage. This is one especially for young couples that can be difficult in the busy season. But you have this concept of concentrating on your marriage. Why do we say a marriage-centric family is critical over a child-centric family? How do we do that?

Dave Willis: The simplest reason we would do that is because that's the way God designed it. When you look at scripture, you look at how he orchestrated the family from the very first couple on, that's his design, that the most important human relationship we have on earth if we're married is with our spouse. It's God first, then our spouse, then our kids.

And when we get that out of balance, when we put our kids first, it creates codependency, it creates a lot of difficult things. It's one of the reasons why the divorce rate is spiking among empty nesters. People are good at co-parenting and paying bills and running kids to practice and being focused on the kids. Once the kids are out of the house, they look at each other and realize they're married to a stranger.

Sadly, there's an epidemic of divorce among people who've been married 20, 30 plus years. We're trying to point people back to the timeless truth of God's design for putting marriage first. When you give your kids the gift of seeing a healthy marriage, it is a gift to them. A lot of young people are scared to get married right now. They're co-habitating, they're dating around, they're scared of marriage. The reason why is they grew up in a household where they never saw a good example of it.

Jim Daly: How did Oreos teach this to your family? This is what I want to know. I mean I love a good Oreo.

Ashley Willis: Oh my gosh, it grosses me out every time I tell it, but it's also a funny story. So, I remember this is when we were in the thick of raising four boys. At the time our youngest was probably one and a half and our oldest was maybe 10. And there was this quiet in the house all of a sudden, and that rarely happened at that time. We were enjoying it for a moment. I think I was folding laundry, you were doing some other kind of chore, and it was just a quiet moment.

I realized I don't know where Chatham is, our littlest one. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, where's Chatham?" And Dave's like, "I thought you knew where Chatham was." And all of a sudden we look at the kitchen, and at the time we had a great room, but our kitchen light was off, but there was one little light coming from the half-bath that was right off the kitchen. I'm like, "Did he actually go to the potty?"

So we go over to the bathroom, and at first I'm relieved. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, there's Chatham. We found him. He's safe and sound." But then I realize there's this dark ring around his mouth. And I'm like, "What is that? That's weird." And then I look and see his soggy hand with a soggy Oreo. And he is smiling ear to ear, dipping an Oreo in the toilet and eating it. And he was so proud of himself. We immediately swiped him up and cleaned him, but it was crazy.

Dave Willis: And how in the world does that reinforce marriage? When you take your eyes off of something that's important for too long, it's going to veer some place it shouldn't. That happened with our kid, but we see that over and over happen with people's marriages. You put it on autopilot, you don't really take time to check in and say, "Where are we, how are we?"

You're just assuming everything's fine because there's not this big crisis, there's not this big explosion, just like we did in that moment where things seemed fine because they were quiet. But quiet doesn't always mean healthy. You need to be proactive and lean in and say, "What can I do to be a better spouse to you? Are we prioritizing each other enough? Do we need to make sure we have that date night on the book consistently?" and just checking in because left on autopilot, every marriage will crash eventually.

John Fuller: Even in that circumstance, there's an illustration there, I'm sure, of different parenting styles and how you handle these things. Because Dina and I would always approach some of the problems quite differently. But you had the wisdom to go seek out help because of those differences. And I thought that was really an important part of what you shared because there's an accountability, there's a willingness to grow. Who did you seek out and what did you learn?

Ashley Willis: I'm telling you, this is Dave. Dave had a lot of wisdom because we found ourselves just getting along in most areas of marriage, but when it came to parenting there was a growing resentment and a tension that we could feel. We weren't fighting and calling names or anything like that, but just you could feel the tension. You could cut it with a knife.

We just found that we just could not get on the same page with parenting. I was much more black and white and Dave was just nicer. Between the two of us is a balanced parent. We've got to figure this out. Dave one day came to me and he said, "Ashley, I know that we have all these areas of marriage where there's not tension, but this tension I just feel like it's growing and I feel that you resent me and I hate that."

He goes, "But I feel like I don't even know what it is. And I have this idea. Let's pray about asking God to bring to mind a couple that we know that has a thriving family, not a perfect family because those don't exist, but a family that we admire that's maybe 10 years ahead of us and let's have them over for dinner and talk to them and just learn from them."

And I was like, "Okay, I'll do it." So we prayed. God brought to mind the same couple, the same family. And so we approached the couple at church and they were more than willing. I mean they were so honored that we would even ask and they were like, "We would love to teach you what we know." So we had them over for pizza and spent like two or three hours just talking through all these issues we'd been facing with parenting. And they gave us new thoughts and new practical skills to consider and to use that we had never thought about.

Dave Willis: Just being willing to ask for help and seek help is sometimes one of the wisest things you can do for any part of life, but certainly for marriage. In marriage, for whatever reason, we just clam up and we're like, "No, I don't want people to know our business." You can't think that way. You have to think there are people out there who've been where we are, who've walked through this and can teach us what they know and let's lean into that.

Jim Daly: Physical intimacy is right up there as well. It's one of the big crushers in marriage. And it doesn't need to be that way. How do we get a healthier grasp on physical intimacy in marriage and make it the wedding present God intended it to be?

Dave Willis: And it is meant to be a gift. I think one place we haven't done a great job as Christianity as a whole, the churches that most of us grew up in, was not celebrating the gift aspect of it. This is a gift, a gift to both spouses that God designed you both for pleasure and connection. When you're leaning into this gift, this intimate gift for a husband and a wife, it's not only physical pleasure, it's not only procreation, but mind, body, soul, you're creating and experiencing this beautiful oneness that God intended for you to have.

If you're denying yourself that or denying your spouse that consistently, then you're making your marriage weaker than it could be, less enjoyable than it could be. For all of us we want to say, this is an area that we can do better, we can experience in a better way. It doesn't have to be scary or intimidating and there are simple steps you can do to get there.

Ashley Willis: Well, I think we first have to realize that physical intimacy is not going to look the same the duration of your marriage. Because we believe there are different seasons of intimacy. And that's based on different circumstances and mindsets and everything in between. So we like to say that there's four different seasons of intimacy.

We use the letter B because we like alliteration. These are not necessarily in sequential order. But we have what we refer to as the Beach season. Imagine like a beach chair. There's a chair that goes with each of these seasons. We do this as a talk at conferences and have these four chairs on stage.

We often equate this season with the honeymoon season because it's when physical intimacy seems to be the easiest. We're having more of it, we're enjoying it, we feel like everything is working, firing on all cylinders. There's not as many frustrations when it comes to physical intimacy.

Dave Willis: But if we stay at the beach all the time, we'd be sunburnt and chafed. You can't stay there all the time. It's a nice season that you can keep coming back to in your marriage, but the day-to-day life, nobody's intimate life looks like that all the time because there are seasons. So it's Beach, Busy, Babies, and Broken are the four seasons.

The Busy season is a kitchen stool. Just practical. In our house, a kitchen stool is not a comfortable chair, but it's the most used chair in the house because of where it is. It's functional, it's practical, it's where kids will sit do some homework, grab a snack. That kind of represents the season of your marriage when you're running, there's always something to do. And intimacy, you're not going to have time probably to burn candles and put on romantic music and recite poetry to each other. It's going to be quicker. And you might have to put it on the schedule which for some people doesn't seem romantic, but it's super practical.

Jim Daly: Physical intimacy which, we're hoping for a more regular dose. To be quite honest, how do we manage that?

Ashley Willis: I think being aware of it and being sensitive to it is half the battle. Because I do think where a lot of couples have a lot of frustration in this area of intimacy is thinking the other just doesn't care. "She doesn't even care about my needs," or, "He doesn't care about my needs," and then they both neither one do anything about it, they just are mad at each other.

The sensitivity from a husband really eases the wife. But I would also say this, because I remember those days being touched out, having small children, nursing and just all the different things, it just doesn't build romance for a woman. So one thing a husband can do is help more than he thinks he needs to be helping because there's a lot of stuff that even if you are nursing your baby that only the mom can do.

So husbands, just pitch in as much as you can just to lift that load a little bit. But I also think wives need more of that non-intimate affection from their husband. I hear all the time from wives especially in this season, they say, "He only wants to touch me if he thinks it's leading elsewhere to full-on intimacy."

Dave Willis: Where husbands you are touching your wife, showing affection without any agenda other than just wanting to show her affection. And that will build her tank up. The husband's like, "I'm stressed, let's go to the bedroom." The wife's like, "I'm stressed, don't touch me." And neither of those is wrong because it's how God made us. But just understanding that difference can help both spouses really be able to serve each other, relate to each other, have patience and tenderness with each other.

Jim Daly: Dave, you were pretty vulnerable in the book about a season where that drive was just something that was gone for you. I'd love for you to talk about that season, which I think you called the Broken chair?

Dave Willis: That's right, the broken season, which is the fourth, is the chair that is just broken. And there will be times in your marriage where for physical distance issues, physical health issues, emotional issues, trust issues, there will be brokenness in this part of the marriage that you need to tenderly work through together.

The second time we walked through the broken season, it wasn't because of a trust issue or a sin issue, it was a health issue on my part where I'd always had a very strong drive and assumed I always would. But I got a thyroid disorder, this autoimmune condition that before it was diagnosed and properly medicated had just tanked my energy, my thought life. I had brain fog all the time.

And I was just sort of a wreck and Ashley was so kind and encouraging walking with me through that season where for the first time ever the bedroom, which is a place I'd always wanted to just sprint to, I was reluctant to go because I had such a fear of inadequacy. I had anxiety around how my body was going even respond. It was a very vulnerable time and she was so patient and so tender through that.

Over a period of time, finally got on the right medications, got myself feeling like myself again and was back to feeling good. But I'll tell you that in that broken season that we walked through for those months, I'm thankful for that time because it's in the broken seasons sometimes of life that God does the best work.

Jim Daly: I want to turn to the legacy idea. What is that legacy target? What are we trying to communicate?

Ashley Willis: I think we have to continuously dream together and legacy is a huge part of that. Why did God bring us together? Why did he put Dave and Ashley together? Why did he put you and your spouse together? What is it? You can look back, especially for those who've been married a long time, you can look back and say, "Well, in this season it was this."

Overall, I think it's good to every year take an assessment and say what went right, what didn't go so right, what do we need to improve? But also what is our marriage speaking to those around us? What is that overarching message? I mean there's many, many things we want to leave behind as a legacy, but I think the biggest one is that marriage is awesome. Even in the hard moments, marriage is wonderful. It is a gift and there is hope even in the hard times.

Dave Willis: Anything that matters to us, we naturally have an inclination of wanting to improve. For some people that's I want to get better at investing money, I want to get better in my fitness, I want to get better at my work and those are all fine goals. But none of those hold a candle to the impact of getting better in your marriage because when we improve our marriage, every part of life will get better as a result.

When our marriage is hurting, every part of our life will start to hurt as a result. God wants your marriage to thrive. He doesn't want you just to survive it. He wants you to thrive and to leave a legacy through your marriage. Maybe you feel like, "Yeah we're not on the path to do that right now, it's just the struggle."

God wants to help you take those next steps and just get better. You don't have to fix everything all at once, but you can make decisions all at once to put you on a new path. And this book is as practical as we can make it. I promise you if you'll do these things, it will make a positive difference in your marriage.

Ashley Willis: I mean this book ideally a couple does it together, but we always like to say it takes one spouse going first. I even think one spouse could read this and little by little make those simple shifts and you will see a difference.

And it's not going to happen overnight, it's not one giant step, it's just you're inching towards those goals. But every inch matters, every shift matters. And as far as it depends on you, make those shifts. And I think you'll experience some positive effects from that.

Dave Willis: And you guys have done it. I mean it's not impossible. And it's a valid thing to aim for is to want to do better, to understand your spouse better for all the benefits we've talked about. Mainly your children so they come out with secure, loving attachments so that they can carry that legacy forward into their marriages, right?

Ashley Willis: Absolutely.

Dave Willis: So thanks for being with us. It's been great.

Ashley Willis: Well thank you for having us.

Dave Willis: We love Focus on the Family. We love you two guys and we're just honored to have the conversation.

Jim Daly: And let me turn to the listener. You know, here at Focus on the Family, we're committed to helping you build the strongest, healthiest marriage possible. We're trying to do that ourselves, everybody. This is good. It's good for each one of us to do that. And we have so many great tools to help you.

One is our counseling team. We're here for you. It's a great service that we have here. If you're struggling, we can provide a free consultation with certified, state-licensed counselors. And they'll help you think through the beginnings of getting help and what that might look like, which might include tapping into our extensive referral network across the country. There are probably people near you that are Christian counselors that can help.

Another great resource, obviously, is the book by the Willis', *Do Marriage Better: Seven Simple Shifts for a Deeper Connection*. If you can make a gift of any amount, we'll send it to you as our way of saying thanks for being part of the ministry. If you can't afford it, we're here. We're a Christian ministry. We want your marriage to be better. Just get in touch with us, let us know that you need the book, but you can't afford it and we'll take care of it, trusting others will cover the cost.

John Fuller: You can donate today and request your copy of the book, *Do Marriage Better*. And you'll find the link to that marriage assessment at focusonthefamily.com/weekend or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. 800-232-6459.

Jim Daly: Chat GPT and AI can offer you ideas and attempt to give you answers, but it can't listen with compassion, pray with you, or offer biblical wisdom. Real connection is what brings true hope. Focus on the Family offers a free confidential consultation with a Christian counselor to guide you and help you find hope with whatever you're facing. Go to focusonthefamily.com/gethelp or call 1-800-A-FAMILY. That's 1-800, the letter A, the word FAMILY.

John Fuller: On behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.