The 4 Laws of Love: Dealing with Problem-In-Laws - 206

The greatest threat to our marriages isn’t from bad things – it is from good things out of priority. When we allow relationships with family or friends to take priority over our marriage, it can create feelings of jealousy and resentment in our spouse. This can lead to conflict and ultimately damage the relationship.

It is important to remember that marriage is a covenant between two people, and it should be given the highest priority in our lives. This means that our spouse should come first in terms of meeting our emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. The only instance where that statement is overruled is with our personal relationship with Jesus. He comes first.

While it is important to have strong relationships with family and friends, they should not come at the expense of our marriage. We must be intentional about setting boundaries and ensuring that our spouse remains the most important person in our lives.

We continue our discussion this week with our series The 4 Laws of Love, the Law of Priority - relationships. My wife, Michelle and I, sit down and discuss the dangers of letting your kids, other family members, and technology get in the way of your spouse's priority. God does have an order for all of those moving parts in our lives.

Visit our website at www.connectingthegap.net for everything about our ministry. We pray you are blessed by this week's episode, and we wish you a very Merry Christmas 2024!

Chapters

• 0:08 The Law of Priority in Relationships
• 11:49 Balancing Priorities in Marriage
• 24:33 Prioritizing Marriage Over Parenting
• 28:17 Marriage and Family Priorities
• 39:19 Maintaining Boundaries With Intrusive in-Laws
• 44:45 Navigating Relationships and Technology Today
• 52:50 Prioritizing Marriage Over Technology
• 1:01:15 Trusting God's Word in Relationships

Transcript

Michelle Moore: 0:08

I see, you know, looking back and just kind of watching some couples that we know now and everything, and just there's some people that we've been friends with or family. I have seen that and really didn't understand it, I think, because we didn't do that and didn't really know that that existed. But I think it's probably one of the most important things in a marriage.

Daniel Moore: 0:33

Well, I think the times that we did see it, I remember making comments about man, how do they get their kids to act like that? You know, how does it seem like their kids had more respect for their parents than our kids had for us, and it does. It kind of makes you sit back and think a little bit about it.

Michelle Moore: 0:52

Obviously, we didn't think too much.

Daniel Moore: 0:54

I was going to say we sure didn't take any steps to correct it, that's for sure, and so, therefore, we just kind of fed into the problem and and fed into the issue that was being created there. This week, on connecting the gap, we continue our study on the four laws of love. We're continuing our study on the law of priority. This week it is relationship. We'll get back into that right after this, that right after this.

Daniel Moore: 1:58

Welcome back to another episode of Connecting the Gap. I'm Daniel Moore, your host. Thank you, guys, for joining us this week.

Daniel Moore: 2:03

If you're not familiar with our show, check out our website, wwwconnectingthegapnet, for all of our platforms that we are on. We also release this to YouTube and Rumble as well. Those links are on our website, and we're also on the Christian podcasting app, edify. You can also visit us on social, at facebookcom, forward slash ctgaponline. If you are a fan of our show, please subscribe and share, and feel free to leave a comment on our platforms. Give us a thumbs up and a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and we'd be grateful for you to do that for us, and, of course, that helps our podcast to grow and helps us to reach more people, which is what this is all about?

Daniel Moore: 2:41

Well, this week we are continuing our study on the four laws of love and once again here in the studio with me this week, I have my wife, michelle, and she's going to be sitting here with us again this week as she helps me co-host this series, and I hope you guys have been receiving something from that. And we want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, as that's coming up right around the corner. Hard to believe, it's already Christmas here in 2024, but it is. So we pray that you have a Merry Christmas and that you have a good time with friends, family, whatever it may be that you have planned for that, and we just want to make sure that we wish you that here from Connecting the Gap. Well, this week we're going to be continuing the law of priority and we're going to be talking about relationships. How should we prioritize the relationships in our life as we're trying to navigate this thing called marriage? This week we're going to talk about that here on Connecting the Gap.

Michelle Moore: 3:42

There was an ancient, ancient, solitary oak tree standing alone in a vast field, proud of its strength and resilience. For years it weathered storms alone, its roots firmly gripping the ground but feeling a deep emptiness inside. Then, one spring, a small wildflower seed, carried by the wind, landed at its base and began to sprout. The oak, initially indifferent, watched as the tiny flowers grew its vibrant colors, bringing a splash of life to the otherwise barren field. As seasons changed, the oak began to notice how the flower, despite its delicate nature, faced harsh weather with grace, reaching towards the sun even when battered by the storms. It noticed how the flower, when in bloom, attracted bees and butterflies, creating a vibrant ecosystem around it. Slowly, the oak started to feel a connection to the flower, providing shade and protection from the harsh winds. The flower, in turn, brought a sense of joy and purpose to the oak's existence. Over time, the once solitary oak realized that its strength was amplified by the presence of the small flower and that the true fulfillment came from the connection and interdependence they shared. This story beautifully depicts how even the strongest individuals can find deeper meaning and resilience through meaningful relationships, no matter how small they may seem.

Michelle Moore: 5:19

The Lonely Oak. It represents the idea that even strong individuals can experience isolation without meaningful connections. The small flower, symbolic of the power of seemingly insignificant relationships to bring joy and purpose. Mutual support. The oak protecting the flower and the flower bringing life to the field, highlights that reciprocal of nature and healthy relationships Grow through connection. The oak's transformation from solitary to connected signifies the positive impact relationships have on our lives.

Daniel Moore: 6:01

So with that story, I think that really shows that relationship is very important, and it's not only us that have those relationships, but even within nature it's something that God has created, and relationships are something that we really need to be careful with how we approach them. Sometimes, you know, relationships are a good thing for us and sometimes they're a bad thing. It just kind of depends on the situation. But the greatest threat to our marriages isn't really from bad things, it's from good things that are out of priority. So when we allow relationships with family or friends to take priority over our marriage, it can create feelings of jealousy and resentment in our spouse, and this, of course, can lead to conflict and ultimately damage the relationship. It is important to remember that marriage is a covenant between two people and it should be given the highest priority in our lives. This means that our spouse should come first in terms of meeting our emotional, physical and spiritual needs. The only instance where that statement is overruled is with our personal relationship with Jesus, because obviously Jesus should be the first priority in our life and our relationships. While it is important to have strong relationships with family and friends, they should not come at the expense of our marriage, we must be intentional about setting boundaries and ensuring that our spouse remains the most important person in our lives. And Michelle and I, throughout the time that we've been married, we've come across some instances where we've had some friendships that have taken priority and they have caused some issues between the two of us. And you know, during the lowest and darkest days of our marriage, there was a point where I eventually had to turn to Jesus to help me when Michelle and I weren't meeting each other's needs. And what ended up happening with all of that is as we went through the portion of our marriage there where we were thinking about being separated and the divorce was a possible thing, that was kind of looming there in front of us. I was kind of in the lowest valley at that point, and that's when I really started realizing the reality of where our marriage was truly at, and I at that point decided that I needed to get God back into my life, which then needed to translate God getting back into our relationship and into our marriage, because really at that point that was the only thing that was going to even come close to fixing the problem that Michelle and I had between each other. And I can remember, you know, many times when she would be gone and I'd be home by myself, I'd just be pacing the floor just praying because I was desperate. I mean I just I wanted God to do something to help fix our marriage and put it back together again.

Daniel Moore: 9:07

And at that point, whenever the affair happened and you know, the relationship between you and I was really disintegrating at that point and falling apart there was a point where you know I could have done the same thing in retaliation is. You know, and I think that does happen sometimes. We do know instances where I know I've heard stories from different people where they have retaliated on their spouse or their significant other because they felt like that they deserved what the spouse had done to them. They deserved what the spouse had done to them. And you know, and doing the and the fact that I didn't retaliate with the same you know thing, you know, back towards you, it ended up finally working a miracle in our lives that ended up completely turning our marriage around, and that's something that we should never do do is go into a retaliation mode. And you know, in all honesty, this actually carries over into just any relationship, even if it's a relationship between you and your kids, or you and your other family members, your parents, whoever it may be. We should never do things out of retaliation. That's just not really the godly way to do things and you know, keeping Jesus into that equation we don't go retaliate, that's just something we shouldn't do.

Daniel Moore: 10:34

But since the time of healing has taken place in our marriage, michelle and I have dedicated ourselves to vigilantly protect it, as sacred as it is. And that means that we've had to make some tough decisions together and we've made some people mad, you know, but protecting our marriage is worth that because we've kind of discussed this a little bit already. But you had a friend that came between the two of us and you had to sever that friendship and I had to sever some friendships that I had brought into the marriage. That should not have been there and it did make those other people pretty angry and they got upset. But I think between the both of us it finally came to the point where we realized what those friendships was doing to our relationship. Yeah, and it was not healthy at all and it comes down to a point that we have to understand that protecting the marriage is worth it If you have to take some bad things out of your life to make sure that your marriage is going to work and make sure that you're going to be able to reconcile and live the godly marriage that God expects, then sometimes we can't expect God to do it all.

Daniel Moore: 11:49

We have to step up and make some choices in our own life. That might be kind of difficult, but if that's the only way that that's going to be fixed, then that's what we really have to do. So this week, as we talk about relationships, we're going to talk about a few different areas of relationships that we have on a daily basis in our life and even within our marriage, and we're going to talk about how these relationships, if they're put in the wrong priority, can actually be dangerous to our marriage. As we stated at the beginning, there's threats in our marriages that are bad, but sometimes those same things can be good. It's just they're out of priority, right, they're not in the right spot.

Daniel Moore: 12:30

So the first touchy subject that we're going to talk about this week is children, and this one is a tough one because we know children they are a gift from God and they are only superseded in priority by our relationship with the Lord and our spouses. If you remember, a few episodes ago we were talking about the priority list and how we should put our priorities, and our kids were third. God was first, our spouse was second and then our children was below that. So children and a lot of you out there listening can probably understand what we're saying when we say this. Children want 100%, 24-7 access to their parents and they don't understand boundaries unless they are taught to do so. If you don't teach your children to respect your marriage, you're not going to have one.

Daniel Moore: 13:20

And Jimmy Evans with the XO Marriage Conference, he jokingly says that children are little creatures and only want one thing they want to possess your souls. And I remember when he first said that I thought it was kind of humorous. But in all reality, if you're not careful, your kids can do that. They can come in and possess your souls at any moment. They will consume every waking moment of your lives, leaving you too exhausted and intruded upon to prioritize your marriage. So the worst case scenario in this can be a super mom or super dad priding themselves in how they quote unquote live for their kids. Those are also known as helicopter parents, because they are always hovering over their children wherever they are, because they are always hovering over their children wherever they are. And when we think about that and I know, michelle, you've probably heard some people you know say that they live for their kids, and I think a lot of people probably. Anybody has heard somebody say that at some point in their life, or you know somebody that seems to do that.

Daniel Moore: 14:19

They just everything totally revolves around them and it looks like, well, where's the spouse left at in all this? You know, it just seems to happen. But what are some things that you can think of? As far as if you live for your kids, how can that be dangerous, and we had some issues with that as well. What's some examples of that? How can that be dangerous in a marriage?

Michelle Moore: 14:43

Well, I think you know, if you're doing everything that your kids want to do, you have to set boundaries, just in general, of all the things that they're involved in, because if they're involved into everything and you don't have that boundary set, you're going to be going nonstop, which is going to exhaust you as a parent and so, therefore, you're not going to have time for that spouse.

Daniel Moore: 15:04

Right.

Michelle Moore: 15:13

So I think you have to set boundaries. Also, you know, if you are involved with other parents doing things for your children's children's when I say children's I think of multiple kids, because you can be super busy nonstop. I think this is one of the things that is super important, because I know in our marriage we got super busy with the kids traveling, soccer, you know, or dance or whatever, or we just had friends and we went and did stuff with all the time. There was really no us time. So you have to be careful to make sure that you separate the boundaries of that. And I also think that there's times that you know, with your children, moms do everything for their children and it's really hard to put the children behind the husband. If the husband wants to go do something, it's like, oh, we've got to do this instead, and it can leave that feeling for that husband of where do I fit in this picture?

Daniel Moore: 16:10

And there are times, you know when, especially when kids are in school I've seen many times where the parents have to split and go opposite directions because they have their kids involved in so much that things happen at the same time. So parents can't be in both places at the same time. And there's nothing wrong with that, necessarily. But I think that probably one of the biggest things I see parents sometimes that let their kids get involved in two or three things at once and then they also have other kids that want to be involved in stuff, and we all want our kids to be successful. I mean, when they're going through school we're hoping they'll get a college scholarship and all this stuff, and it takes a lot of hard work to do that. But here's something to think about when you have your kids and you're putting them in all this stuff, which is taking every bit of it's basically deciphering all of the time that the spouses have to spend together. Let's say that you're married at age 25 and you stay married until you die, around 80 years old. At that point you'll have been married for 55 years. You have children at age 28 and they live with you 18 years before leaving for college. That means 37 out of those 55 years you will not have that child at home with you. Is it wise to forfeit 37 years alone, together, for 18 years of parenting? I mean, you just got to think about some of that stuff. And whenever you get married, that marriage is supposed to be one of the most important relationships that is ordained by God and he gives that to us so that, prayerfully, that we will have the sense to be good stewards with our time as spouses and parents you got to be able to make sure that you don't leave one side unattended while you're overly attending the other side. And, believe me, this is something Michelle and I had to learn the hard way as well.

Daniel Moore: 18:15

It's not like we had this all figured out and was all perfect with it when our kids were growing up, because we did. We had traveling soccer, we had cheerleading, we had dance, we had baseball at one point for just a little bit. We had traveling soccer, we had cheerleading, we had dance, we had baseball at one point for just a little bit, we had football a little bit at one point. There was just a lot of things. And you know some of the soccer. We had traveling soccer with rec soccer, you know, going on at the same time and we did. We spent a lot of time on the road and a lot of finances, a lot of you know a lot of things that we put into that to try to make sure the kids are doing everything that they wanted to do.

Daniel Moore: 18:49

And the whole time you and I were almost ignoring each other to an extent. And you know there's some balance there that needs to take place, because if you're not careful, then those kids are going to overcome your marriage and then we've talked a little bit about this already in a previous episode as well. But if you don't know how to live with each other by the time them kids are gone, because your whole time has been wrapped up in raising your kids and functions and everything else, then the day that they leave you're two strangers living in a house, and that has actually been cited several times as being a partial reason for divorce, because they just felt like they didn't know each other at that point and they couldn't get along. So the point of this is children are a temporary assignment where marriages are permanent. I think we need to make sure that when we have our kids and we make that choice to decide to have children. That's something we need to keep in our mind is, you know, god gives us this assignment temporarily. They're going to move on someday and get married, and your marriage, though, is going to be there until the day you die. That's a permanent thing, or at least it should be. It's not wise to sacrifice our marriages, who are here for just a little while and then gone when children leave. They don't want to run in their lives. You know they want space, and rightly so. We have to start backing ourselves out at that point as the parent role, and we become more of a mentor and a friend type thing at that point, so we don't have that responsibility anymore.

Daniel Moore: 20:23

After dinner with the family and family time in the evenings after work or whatever your schedule may be, the best case scenario here is, whenever that time comes, the children should be put in bed and then be made aware that after bedtime, it's mommy and daddy's time to be together, unless there is an emergency, and not to bother them, because we all know that kids are notorious. As soon as you put them in bed, they're in there 5, 10, 15 minutes, and then Mom, dad, I need to go to the bathroom, or I want a drink, or, you know, they always try to find some excuse to get out of bed and not sleep. That's you know. They want to be in there, where everybody else is at, and some kids are scared of the dark, you know. So you have to deal with that as well and they think monsters are attacking them or whatever.

Daniel Moore: 21:08

But we at an early age that's something that really needs to be ingrained in the children is, you know, we have our time with you throughout the day. There's a different times that we take you to events and functions or whatever. We go to the park, whatever it may be, but there is a point in time when it's bedtime and then after this it's mommy and daddy's time and that we can wind down from our day and talk about the things that we need to talk about. Kids need to know at an early age that they aren't in control. We let them know that we love them, but we aren't willing to sacrifice the marriage to fulfill their every demands. When kids leave the home, you know we're always sad to see them go. We've actually had some of ours leave. We've been in empty nesters once, so we know what that's like. But at the same time we should be happy to be together again when that takes place. The kids will typically then pick up that example of parenting and institute it in their own marriages and they will have good, healthy marriages with a proper balance of parenting and alone time enjoying each other's company. And then of course that's a snowball effect, because once that happens then potentially that just keeps going on for generations and generations.

Daniel Moore: 22:21

There's also the opposite of this occurring way too often inspirations. There's also the opposite of this occurring way too often. A couple gets married. They truly love each other and have all the best intentions and highest dreams of their lives together. They get pregnant, have their first child and the baby becomes the center of their universe, with all the excitement of the new baby and the responsibilities it brings. They don't realize all their time and energy they used to spend on each other has now been diverted. It's not a big deal if it's only temporary and only lasts a short while, but in all reality, for many couples this becomes a diversion that in essence lasts for decades.

Daniel Moore: 22:58

And as that baby becomes a toddler and grows up, the parents find that the child now has new demands. Additional children are often introduced into the mix at this time as well. Now that also requires more of their attention, and then tensions start to build between the couples as they find themselves exhausted and financially strapped. They then realize that their marriage is a shell of what it once was Now, when this happens, there's unmet needs on both sides. There's also resentment. The wife resents the husband for being emotionally detached and not co-parenting with her and being a spouse like he should be. The husband's anger is now focused on how the mom gives all of her attention to the children and leaves him literally nothing because she is too exhausted and distracted to be with him and meet his needs. The marriage can then be destroyed when it gets to this point if the core issue that caused it all isn't resolved.

Daniel Moore: 23:56

So we have to remind ourselves of what was said earlier. We made the statement about the new firstborn child becoming the center of the universe, made the statement about the new firstborn child becoming the center of the universe. That is exactly where the problem started, and a huge mistake was made. The law of priority is a law that is universal and timeless, and it's without exceptions. When a child is born, it is a time of joy and to rejoice.

Daniel Moore: 24:21

But when the child rearranges your priorities and diverts the time and energy that you have for your spouse, that becomes a tragic mistake. But it can be corrected and it's never too late to make that right. And I think you know, with Michelle and I, you know I can look back now and think about all those years that we were constantly on the road with our kids and letting them do different things or whatever, where we let those priorities get out of balance. And I mean, would you agree I think it did affect the closeness that we had. Yeah, and you know it can be used also. I think sometimes if, for some reason, the spouses aren't getting along real well, that can actually be a distraction that distracts you from the problem.

Michelle Moore: 25:07

Yeah.

Daniel Moore: 25:08

And.

Michelle Moore: 25:09

I think that's more where we were at.

Daniel Moore: 25:11

Yeah, it makes it easier where you don't have to deal with it. Yeah, you know, because if you're constantly wrapped up in your kids and doing everything until every waking moment until you go to bed, then by the time you get in bed you're so exhausted your head hits the pillow and you're out, you know. And so disaster averted for another day, you know, we go to sleep, we don't have to talk about it, the elephant in the room, and we just keep moving along that way, and I think a lot of times we don't realize that it's getting worse and worse every day, that we allow that, though, and we start to have those big issues and problems. So if you are in the situation where you have let this happen and you've let your kids come in and pretty much can take control of your marriage, and maybe you're thinking, well, how in the world do I fix this? There are some steps that need to be taken, and the first step is to repent to your spouse and ask forgiveness. But, of course, to be able to do that, you've got to understand you've got a problem.

Daniel Moore: 26:16

I think until we actually admit the fact that, hey, this has happened, you're not going to probably think that there's an issue, you're just going to blame it on each other and that blame game goes on. But there does come to a point in time where you have to understand that both of you messed up and made a mistake and there needs to be some forgiveness there. We also need to stop responding to all the demands of your children. Love and care for them, but don't allow them to violate the boundaries of your marriage or consume all your time and energy. You need to train them to respect your marriage and you know I don't think I mean. Do you feel like we ever trained our kids to respect our marriage?

Michelle Moore: 26:56

No.

Daniel Moore: 26:57

I don't think so either.

Michelle Moore: 26:58

I mean I see, you know, looking back and just kind of watching some couples that we know now and everything, there's some people that we've been friends with or family. I have seen that and really didn't understand it, I think, because we didn't do that and didn't really know that that existed. But I think it's probably one of the most important things in a marriage.

Daniel Moore: 27:24

but I think it's probably one of the most important things in a marriage. Well, I think the times that we did see it, I remember us making comments about man, how do they get their kids to act like that? Because it seemed like their kids had more respect for their parents than our kids had for us. And it does. It kind of makes you sit back and think a little bit about it.

Michelle Moore: 27:43

Obviously, we didn't think too much.

Daniel Moore: 27:45

I was going to say we sure didn't take any steps to correct it, that's for sure. And so therefore, we just kind of fed into the problem and fed into the issue that was being created there. So you know it's not. It's not one of those things where you know, michelle and I, as we've talked here in previous episodes, how I was really strict. You know I had the nickname Sergeant for a while because I was so strict on the kids or whatever.

Daniel Moore: 28:17

There is a point where it can be cruel to a kid if you go too far with the respect thing and there's got to be a balance there, just like with everything else. But at the same time, looking back on what we've been through and how our kids were towards us and what we allowed with our kids and our marriage and everything you do, come to realization eventually that you know we really probably should have been a little bit more stern and helped them to understand better about the respect factor for each other in the marriage and towards the parents. I think kids that don't respect their parents eventually you're going to have probably some rebellion issues possibly later in life and that kind of thing, some of that. I think it opens the door for some of that as well. Some of that, I think it opens the door for some of that as well. So there's a proper way to do that and we just have to make sure that, biblically, we follow God's plan and put the kids make sure that they understand their priority in the relationships within the home. Another thing is create new disciplines in your marriage to redirect your time and energy back to your spouse in a prioritized, regular manner, because even though many passions in your marriage may have faded at that point, don't let the feelings that you have dictate your actions. You know you need to do the right things and the passions will return.

Daniel Moore: 29:37

And I think that's a hard one, because if you've already set the precedent to let your kids control everything you do, it's really hard to reel that back, because, for one thing, both parents aren't always on the same page, because I think I can remember back, you know, with our marriage there's times that you wanted to go do things, that I was sitting there thinking I just don't, that's a lot. I don't know if I want to do that or not. You know it's going to cost this or whatever. I always had the reasons. And then if I wanted to do there sometimes that you weren't on the same page with me from the opposite side of it, and you know and I think that's where the issues come in where there's some resentment can set in between the two spouses, because then you feel like, well, where do I fit in this equation? Are the kids more important than me or what you know? And some of that stuff starts happening.

Daniel Moore: 30:25

So disciplines and traditions are crucial to keep your marriage strong for the rest of your life, and it doesn't matter what you can make happen. It matters what you can keep happening. It's an ongoing action on your part. So if you know, if you have this issue and you're wanting to try to correct this and get these priorities back in place, you can't just give it a week and then, oh, this isn't working and give up on it. This is something that you have to if you're going to put it in place. You need to be on the same page between both spouses that we're going to do this until it's fixed, and you have to be consistent Consistency is the key to that to make sure you stick to that through the very end of it. So here's some good disciplines and traditions to rebuild your marriage to ensure that it will continue to grow.

Daniel Moore: 31:11

And we had talked a little bit about some of this before the weekly date night. We actually, you know, have with a couple that we know that did that, did a weekly date night and then you and I tried it a little bit. Didn't seem to stick real well, but we did try it and it was fun. But you know it's again, I think that comes to a time issue trying to make the priority, to set the time aside and whatever. But the times that we did have the weekly date nights, they were fun and I think you know it was a good. Have the weekly date nights. They were fun and I think you know it was a good—and that's without kids, by the way. You take time for yourselves, is what that's saying, and I think that you know it is important to do that kind of thing.

Daniel Moore: 31:59

Praying together and going to church that's something we had to start working on again, because we just—we still went to church really's something we had to start working on again because we just we still went to church. Really, for the most part, we never really stopped going to church necessarily, but the praying thing, we made a lot of choices on our own, without praying about those. Taking walks together and taking short overnight weekend trips, talking face-to-face without distractions every day, planning times to have sex when you're both rested, not going to bed angry or taking things out on each other and being forgiving. Read a good marriage book together, go to a marriage conference which is something that we started doing off and on there for a little bit Watch a romantic comedy together or finding something you both like to do, and do it regularly. That's some things that you can do, even while you have kids at home, to help reignite that flame and, you know, give that marriage a new kickstart if necessary. And is there anything else that you can think of to add to that?

Daniel Moore: 33:02

I'm thinking we don't do any of that now we don't do very much of it, but we don't have kids at home anymore no but so so me, so you and I get, we get all kinds of time together I'm like geez, uh, well, we don't do any of that.

Michelle Moore: 33:17

I mean, we do. I take that back. We pray together yeah we go to church, I mean we take walks when you're not busy.

Daniel Moore: 33:24

So I mean and we do some trips here and there together. We make sure every year for our anniversary we usually take off for a night or two.

Michelle Moore: 33:33

Yeah, I mean there's a few things, but I'm just laughing as you're reading down those. I'm like okay, well, all right.

Daniel Moore: 33:39

Yeah, yeah, but I think in essence, well, not going to bed angry, that's something we've stopped.

Michelle Moore: 33:45

We've learned that.

Daniel Moore: 33:46

Yeah, we do not allow that anymore in our marriage and we don't really get into it very often either, though I mean for the most part I mean me and you.

Michelle Moore: 33:56

We think too much alike now.

Daniel Moore: 33:58

I guess so I guess ever since everything's happened. What it is is. I'm just terrified she'll whoop me in my sleep if I'm not careful, and she's pretty rough and tough. So yeah, that's it. I wake up in the morning, find myself on my head in the floor. Yeah, just never known our bed's about three, two, two to three feet off the floor, so that's quite a drop for me.

Daniel Moore: 34:19

At my age so, but no, we really don't really get into too many arguments anymore now that the kids are gone. I think that's the biggest, and we already mentioned that once before A lot of our arguments centered around our kids. That just seemed to be the norm for us. But when we do I mean if we ever do at this point in life, though if we ever do have an argument or something, we try to take care of that pretty quickly, and that's a very healthy thing. That needs to be made a priority in your marriages.

Michelle Moore: 34:50

And after 20 years, you know when I'm upset without even me saying something, right?

Daniel Moore: 34:56

It's super easy to read each other's mail, yeah, and we care enough to take care of it? Yep, absolutely. So that's the point in all of that. So that's the first thing that we need to be careful of in relationships. When it comes to prioritizing your life at home is to make sure the kids know that you love them, know that you'll do anything for them, but not at the expense of your marriage. Your marriage to your spouse is the most important thing. Besides, god and your kids need to understand that, and it'll make things work a lot smoother, make things go a lot better.

Daniel Moore: 35:33

The second one is in-laws, and you know, once again, the issue at hand here is the law of priority. You know, in order for marriages to succeed, they have to be protected and it has to be our number one relationship between the husband and the wife. Remember the first words that God spoke into a marriage We've talked about this several times throughout this series in Genesis 2, 24, where it says Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. So husbands and wives must leave or repririoritize is another word for that and then cleave or unite. You need to come together as one. It has to happen in that order. So what if one or both spouses won't leave their parents? Or what if a parent won't let go and won't relinquish their prioritized position with him or her? What if a parent has such control that they try to control and manipulate with money, intimidation or some other means? What if that same parent clashes with their new child's new spouse and tries to regain their emotional connection to them? Now, these questions. They represent what can commonly occur with in-laws when violating the law of priority. However, the main problem isn't with the in-law, it's actually with the child that won't leave. So we've talked a little bit about this already. The word leave in Hebrew is azab and it means to loosen or let go. So leaving our parents doesn't mean we disrespect or shun them. We've talked about this before. It just means that they must be reprioritized to be a lesser priority than our spouse.

Daniel Moore: 37:14

Now, one challenge of leaving is the confusion of honor and authority. When growing up under our parents' authority, we're taught to obey them, and rightly so, because you know, the Bible tells us as children we're to obey our parents. They're the authority over us. But when we get married and leave home, the married couple is no longer under that authority. As a married couple, we're an autonomous family unit under God's authority. We make our own decisions and chart our own courses as we seek God's direction, talk with each other and seek good counsel. We still honor our parents, but we don't have to mind them. They are no longer in authority over us.

Daniel Moore: 37:56

Now here's a caveat, and this sometimes can get people in trouble, and Michelle and I have been there. If you're taking loans and money from your parents, sometimes that means they do probably have a louder voice than they would otherwise. But even if that's the case, they still shouldn't be allowed to violate the priority of your spouse or the autonomy of your home. Problem in-laws, as we like to call them, will use money to try to control your home. You cannot allow this. Remember, the problem isn't the in-law, it's the child that got married but didn't properly leave.

Daniel Moore: 38:31

Problem in-laws have usually neglected their own marriages. The scenario from earlier where the couple has a new baby and it becomes the center of their universe. They are problem in-laws in training. They have vacated the priority of their marriage and reassigned it to their child, and now they see emotional fulfillment through parenting. Thus, when the precious child leaves home one day, nothing changes Because they have sacrificed their marriage for parenting. One or both of them will desperately seek to retain the unhealthy emotional connection to their grown child even after they marry.

Daniel Moore: 39:05

Sometimes the marriage starts out friendly, but they're still consuming too much oxygen or too close to allow their child and their new spouse to build a proper bond together Soon. As with the children, this can happen here as well. Resentment grows on the side of the in-law spouse. They grow to resent the constant presence and control of one or both in-laws. They increasingly voice their resentment to their spouse.

Daniel Moore: 39:31

But the only one who can change things is the spouse whose parents or parents are intruding. It is virtually impossible for the one spouse to close the door when the other spouse who has the parent issue keeps opening it. You must protect your spouse from your parents if they are intruding on your marriage. If you feel you cannot do that, but your spouse can, you need to back them up and support them in it. Either way, the problem isn't the in-laws. It's the lack of boundaries that exist in the marriage and the refusal to defend them.

Daniel Moore: 40:04

Now Michelle and I are fortunate. Our parents have never been this way towards us as far as being in the middle of our business and all that kind of thing, and so we really don't have any experience in what that would be like. Thank the Lord. I don't even want to know what that would be like, but I do know people that have had this issue, with their parents hovering over them and not wanting to let them go. And it does. It causes issues between the spouses and can cause problems, and that's something even Michelle and I, as our kids have gotten married and started their own lives, we try our hardest to stay out of the middle of those situations because that's something they need to work out on their own.

Michelle Moore: 40:55

Well, just in life, I mean, I feel like we try. Well, I know I do, and Brooke and Kevin will tell you, I mean Jeremiah and Lexi, I don't really spend like a whole bunch of time texting and calling them or anything like that, because this is one of my worries I don't want to be one of those parents that are constantly in my kids' business and so I kind of tend to not reach out as much as I probably should sometimes, just because I'm just like you know they've got their own life, you know I want them to experience it without me butting into it.

Daniel Moore: 41:30

And it can cause parents to take sides. Sometimes, if things happen and as you know, this happens even just with friendships not necessarily just an issue between parents and children, but sometimes, whenever things come up, we have a tendency to hear one side of the story and we may not hear the other side, and then that starts creating some issues where you start taking sides and then the fight's on at that point and it's just not healthy and it's not a way to allow your kids to start creating their own life together. And now you know, as we've discussed a little bit prior, I think there is a point where parents can give some good wisdom, some good biblical advice occasionally. If it comes down to that, but for the most part you know from what Michelle and I have experienced it's almost better to let the kids work those things out between themselves as much as possible before you even try to put anything into it.

Michelle Moore: 42:34

And then you need to make sure they go to God in prayer.

Daniel Moore: 42:37

Right.

Michelle Moore: 42:37

That's first and foremost.

Daniel Moore: 42:39

Yeah, so with this parental issue, sometimes parents do this because they have some kind of an emotional void in their marriage. But if they do have that, it isn't your job to fill it. If you allow them to try to use you to solve their problems, it's not going to fix them. It's only going to break you and your spouse in the process. Is what's going to end up happening? So, as spouses, you must stand your ground and lovingly encourage your parents to work on their marriages. Go to church, make friends, see a counselor or whatever it may be. They need to get a life and stop trying to force you back into the center of theirs. You know they made a mistake to put you there in the first place and if they can't fix it, at least you can fix it on your end. Don't respond to threats, fits, manipulation, guilt, shame or anything else that they may try to throw at you. You need to stand your ground and train your parents to respect your marriage, and this can be a really bad issue, because if parents have emotional issues between each other, that's definitely one of the first places that they might have a tendency to go to, especially if they don't have very many friends. They may come right to you and try to pull you into the middle of that and whatever they're missing at home with themselves, they try to use you to fill that, which then could cause it's just a domino effect if you're not careful. It's just a domino effect if you're not careful, and so that's another place where, as the child and the spouse, you may just have to put your foot down, even on your parents and say you know what? You guys have the issue. You too need to fix that issue. It's not mine and my wife's responsibility to take care of that. And you know, as spouses with the priority that we have in the line of authority, the way that God's put it, we have the right to do that. And you know, as spouses with the priority that we have in the line of authority, the way that God's put it, we have the right to do that. And you want to protect your marriage at all costs. So again, michelle and I have never had that issue, necessarily for the most part, with all of our, with our parents or anything, and we try not to our hardest to make sure we don't do that in our kids' marriages either. It's just not healthy.

Daniel Moore: 44:45

The third thing is friendships, when it comes to relationships that can get out of priority, friendships is definitely a big one. It's another relationship that we got to keep in the right place. You know, in the beginning of our marriage there was friendships that I had put in front of our relationship. Then Michelle created a friendship that ended up in a fair and had friends at that time that didn't like me. So, as we kind of said a little bit earlier, we both had the same issue come at each other from both sides.

Daniel Moore: 45:15

Now Michelle and I are equals and we don't dominate each other, but during those times we had to get forceful with each other to let those friendships go that weren't healthy for our marriage. Because we didn't do that at the beginning, it literally almost caused us to get a divorce. My friendships caused issues which then led to the friendships Michelle had, which almost led to another marriage for us to be destroyed. Neither one of us at that time was honoring the priority of our relationship or was willing to protect it from unhealthy friendships. So when this is an issue and you have friends involved, we have to demonstrate to our spouses in real terms that they are first in our lives and we must protect them from friends who are either ungodly, unhealthy or don't respect the boundaries of the marriage. A quote-unquote good friend who is bad for your marriage isn't really truly a good friend. In some cases, you can repair a problem friendship with some tough love and honest conversation. In other cases, the only answer is to break off the friendship. One of the most important ways that we can communicate love to our spouses is by what we're willing to give up for them.

Daniel Moore: 46:25

Michelle and I have given up friends for each other and it was a demonstration of true love and it actually saved our marriage.

Daniel Moore: 46:32

Yeah, Because if we hadn't have done that, we wouldn't be sitting here today doing this series for all of you guys to hear. And you know the friendships that I brought in was a different kind of a friendship that even Michelle had. You know I had the baggage that I brought into our marriage with some previous you know ex-girlfriends and that kind of thing, where she actually had a friend that you know she worked with, where she worked, that literally hated my guts and she was actually very toxic towards our relationship. She was trying to get you to leave me and trying to get you to end all of that. And you know in your case, so you know with me. I gave up my friendships finally, because I realized I was going to get divorced if I didn't, and that's not another path that I wanted to go down, and it took me a while to get to that point, to make that decision. But is that the same for you?

Michelle Moore: 47:31

Yeah, it took me a little bit to figure it out. I think the true colors came out of a situation that happened and then I realized at that time that's not a friend, that is not a true friend.

Daniel Moore: 47:43

Yeah, and of course you and I had to care. Yeah, I mean, if I could have cared less about our marriage it wouldn't have mattered. And if you actually got to the point where you could have cared less about our marriage, fortunately with your situation, when that happened, between the friends you had we had kind of started reconciling already, and so we had already been trying to work on things and trying to put things back together. But that was one last straw that kept trying to pull us back apart, and you realize that. And so if somebody out there is trying to get rid of a friend like that, what advice would you give them on what steps maybe they should take? Should they talk to them first and try to talk sense into them, or should they just cut it off cold turkey or what do you think?

Michelle Moore: 48:34

I don't know, in my situation, I just cut it off. I mean, it was just—but I also, I think, because we were trying to reconcile, I think that you know, after praying, I think God just opened my eyes to what type of friendship I was allowing and at that point, I mean, I think you have to be open to what God really shows you, because he's going to show you whether they're a good person I wouldn't even say a good person, but a good friendship or not. Instead of me fighting for my marriage and someone saying, hey, you should be fighting for your marriage, you need to be getting on your knees instead of saying, hey, let's go do this, let's go do that, you should know whether they're a good friendship or not.

Daniel Moore: 49:23

And that wasn't a godly friendship.

Michelle Moore: 49:25

I swear I was afraid to say that, but I was like ugh. Well to me there's a difference, because if you have good godly friends and that's the thing I think from the whole beginning with us is just there was so much world in our marriage, like it was nothing, the godliness was not there. And I think just because there were so many things that lined up with the world versus biblical right we fell, just kept going down the wrong path.

Michelle Moore: 49:58

Yeah, completely friendships. Uh, you know everything we did to each other. It was just, there was multiple things.

Daniel Moore: 50:06

Yeah, because I've seen marriages reconcile without God in them, and I'm sure people out there listening have probably seen that happen as well.

Daniel Moore: 50:15

But I personally feel that it's got to be a lot harder, because I think if you bring God into the equation, it gives you a whole new purpose and a whole new reason to want to salvage your marriage, on top of the fact that you're trying to rekindle that love that you had between each other.

Daniel Moore: 50:32

But I think when you put God in that mix, things just go so much better and then you actually, I think, in the long run, probably come out even with a stronger love than what you probably would have if God wasn't a part of that, with a stronger love than what you probably would have if God wasn't a part of that. And so when you have friends in the equation that aren't godly and they don't understand that whole aspect of all of it, they're probably not ever going to encourage you to keep it together. They're going to be the naysayers. You just need to leave that person. They're bad for you and you need to let them go on down the road, and that's not what people need to hear when they're trying to reconcile their marriage.

Michelle Moore: 51:07

That's the last thing they need to hear we should be fighting for our marriage.

Daniel Moore: 51:10

Right.

Michelle Moore: 51:11

Any marriages.

Daniel Moore: 51:12

Yeah. So with friendships, be super careful on who you allow into that space, especially if you're having problems. Yeah, and it's one thing to have a friend, that's ungodly that if they cross the line, you say, hey, no, that's a little too far. Let's back this up and reel this in a little bit here. We're not going to go there. But if you're already having problems, you're already having second thoughts about your marriage. You're already mad at your spouse. You're already angry at them, trying to find the next reason that you can tear them down about something. When you've got a cheering section over here with a bunch of ungodly friends just pushing you on, you're probably going to end up divorced. That's probably what's going to end up happening, and so you've got to be really careful with that if you really care about keeping God first in your relationships. So the final one that we're going to talk about here today with relationships is technology and social media.

Daniel Moore: 52:09

You know there's so many people today that are obsessed with their phones and just all the different kinds of things. They've done studies on this, and there's a new study that was done and it said that the heaviest smartphone users click, tap or swipe on their phones 5,427 times a day. On an average, that's the top 10% of phone users, so one would expect it to be excessive. However, the rest of us still touch the addictive things about 2,617 times a day and an average ourselves and that's not a small number either. The research firm, which specializes in consumer reactions to products, recruited 94 Android device users and installed special software on their smartphones. The tool tracked each user's interaction over five days, all day long. The company said in a blog post on its website and by every interaction they mean every tap, type, swipe and click, and they were calling them touches.

Daniel Moore: 53:15

Averaging out the numbers, the aforementioned figures mean the heaviest users are touching their device a couple of million times in one year. Their device a couple of million times in one year. Probably the most interesting thing in all of this was that the people surveyed completely underestimated their phone touching. While they were initially shocked by the numbers, 41% said it probably won't change the way I use my phone. They're still going to keep doing it. So how many taps, types, swipes and clicks take place between you and God in a day? I mean that's something that we really probably have to think about when it comes to thinking about this technology and social media thing, and you can put your spouse in that as well. You know how much time do you, you know, focus towards your spouse rather than doing this type of activity.

Michelle Moore: 54:04

I thought you were getting ready to say how many times do you tap your wife? Oh, no.

Daniel Moore: 54:09

That's for a later episode, sorry, oh goodness.

Michelle Moore: 54:15

I was like what.

Daniel Moore: 54:17

What notes are you reading over there?

Michelle Moore: 54:20

You can take that part out. I don't know I might leave it. I was like wow.

Aria: 54:29

Okay back to the notes.

Daniel Moore: 54:32

So today, because of technology, we all know that we're very rarely alone. We might be alone in person, we may not have a physical person sitting next to us, but because of technology, we're almost always active. We've got something going on and that creates a huge problem for marriages and families. They can violate the priority of your marriage. You have to create disciplines in when and how you use your phone to protect your relationship. Technology is a great servant, but it's a terrible master. If you can't turn off your game phone, tablet or computer or put it down for a while, then you're in bondage, and so is your marriage. You need to have technology-free times every day when you can be alone with your spouse and be able to relate to them without any intrusion. A question here that's brought up that you may not be aware of do you know that an astonishing number of divorces happening today are because of technology or social media? There's a statistic out there that's been reported that at least 40% of divorce petitions include the word Facebook.

Daniel Moore: 55:39

The bottom line is this Marriage is the most important human relationship that we will ever have. It takes priority over every other person in our lives. It must be protected from every other relationship, especially the good and important ones, and we must vigilantly guard our spouses and the time and energy necessary to love them and meet their needs. We need to create and maintain enough time alone with each other to communicate, recreate, be intimate and keep our passions for each other growing.

Daniel Moore: 56:13

And I don't know how many times, you know, I've been on social media and I've seen pictures like little cartoons or whatever of people sitting there with their you know devices in their hand, their head down and the whole time. You know, the kids are doing things and the world's happening out there in front of them and they don't see none of it. They're just totally oblivious to what's going on out there because they spend so much time with their heads stuck in their devices. And I think that you know, with Michelle and I, we don't necessarily have an addiction like that at all. There's times that if we're sitting in the couch at night, we like to do crosswords and stuff like that, so we'll sit there, do some crossword games.

Daniel Moore: 56:56

We're old people, we're old, yeah, While the TV's playing. You know if we're watching a football game or something like that. But I know that if Michelle wants to talk to me about something, I can put my phone down, and if I want to talk to Michelle about something, she'll put her phone down. That's just something that we do not allow to happen in the middle of our conversations. We go to restaurants. Usually, you know, our phones will sit there to the side and we'll eat our meal and talk about different things and communicate about, you know, stuff that we need to talk about or whatever.

Daniel Moore: 57:31

That's just something that's really important when it comes to spouses is not to have to compete with a phone or a tablet or whatever it may be. You've got to make sure that you're in a space where you can actually put those things down when it's important and don't miss life as it passes you by. I mean, that's probably one of the biggest things that I realized is if I spend an hour or two on my phone, you know, doing things or whatever, that's a couple of hours I don't even know what happened outside around me. I mean it totally consumes everything at that moment when I'm doing that and the world still continues around us and we need to make sure that we pay attention to that.

Michelle Moore: 58:13

And I think it's important to to have that open communication of if you're trying to talk to your spouse and they're not paying attention to you because they're on their phone, you need to say hey, I'm not trying to compete with your phone, but I need to talk to you because they're on their phone. You need to say, hey, I'm not trying to compete with your phone, but I need to talk to you. Could you please put that down? You have to be able to have that communication and for the other spouse to be understanding that your spouse is wanting to talk to you and have your full attention.

Daniel Moore: 58:38

And you need to remember how to communicate.

Daniel Moore: 58:39

Yep, I mean, that's something that's real big.

Daniel Moore: 58:42

Today, a lot of the younger generation that's growing up right now can't even communicate with people their own age or want to stand up in front of a room full of people, because they're so used to communicating on their phone constantly.

Daniel Moore: 58:53

They have no social interaction, and that can happen with your marriage. If you're not careful, you can get to a point where you can't even talk to each other because you don't ever do it, and so that's something you have to be careful of each other, because you don't ever do it, and so that's something you have to be careful of. So, as we wrap up today, as we've talked about the different aspects of relationship here in the law of priority, when we've done all of these things and put all these things back in the priority of where they need to be, then we will have honored the first law of marriage, and that is the law of priority, and because of that, we can believe that our marriages will have a long, lasting and bright future, because if you have everything in the right order and you allow those priorities to take place in the order they're supposed to, then you're definitely. It's going to be hard not to have a good marriage.

Daniel Moore: 59:41

I mean it's inevitable. You're going to have a good one if you allow that to happen. So is there anything else that you want to add to this week before we close today? All right, well, thank you guys for listening this week and hopefully we've covered something today Maybe that you've maybe had some question about, or even maybe having an issue with, and hopefully giving you some a little bit of advice there that might work for you and help you with some of the problems that you may be coming across in your marriages. If you want to, you can reach out to us here at Connecting the Gap. My email is danielconnectingthegapnet. There's also a form on our website that you can fill out as well and, as we've been saying, if you'd like to share things maybe share a story of something that worked for you guys as you were going through your marriage or whatever it may be We'd love to hear from you and be able to read those. Maybe if you'll allow us to share them in an episode in the future, but for this week, we're going to call it good. Next week, we're going to be continuing with the final part of the law of priority. We're going to be talking about the law of romance. We'll get into that next week and go through that here on Connecting the Gap. Well, that ends this week's episode.

Daniel Moore: 1:00:52

I'm Daniel Moore and this is my wife, michelle. She's been sitting over here with me today in this episode. Thank you guys for listening. This show really wouldn't be possible without you. If you're a fan of the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, please subscribe to us on your favorite platform, and the links for those are in some of the show notes on the different platforms, or you can go to our website at connectingthegapnet to check all of those out. Well, as we go, don't forget that God's Word never fails us. God's Word has stood the test of time.

Aria: 1:01:39

And through Jesus' death on the cross, he has connected the gap You've been listening to Connect test of time and through Jesus' death on and encourage each other to connect the gap. We upload a new audio podcast every Thursday and a video version of it on YouTube and Rumble. We are also on the Christian podcasting app Edify. You can subscribe to our podcast on many of the available podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcast, spotify, amazon Music, iheart Radio, tunein Radio and more. We are also available on your Alexa-enabled devices. If you would like to contact our ministry for any reason, visit our contact page and send us a message. We hope you are blessed by this ministry. This is a production of Connecting the Gap Ministries.