Get answers to your questions about marriage, parenting and family life from experts and parents of 7 children!

Rachel Denning (00:00.654)
Good morning, my friends. Welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast, where our whole purpose and mission is to help you genuinely and thoroughly design, create, and live an extraordinary family life.

So today is going to have a primary focus on your marriage, but the principles are true for every part of your life and every part of your family life, especially a very well known, even quite famous couple who seemed to have a good marriage, just publicly announced their divorce.

Boom, just a shock. It's horrible. And I get to do, I get to do marriage coaching every week. I do some marriage coaching. So kind of mixed in with, with the one -on -one coaching I do and the group coaching we're doing, I get to specifically address marriage with couples. And it's whether, you know, some they're just like, Hey, I want to level up, make it great. Or some are saying, yeah, we're, we're really hurting.

And here's the greatest takeaway, my friends. This is why good marriages fail. And it's the same reason why good people fail and good families fail. Whenever we leave anything to chance, the best result we can hope for is mediocrity. But most likely it'll end in some kind of failure or disaster or real problem and a lot of suffering that comes with it.

I've been doing just recently, I was doing some marriage coaching and things have gotten really, really bad. In fact, two instances this week where they were just ready to end it and walk away.

Rachel Denning (02:00.43)
And I get it. I understand. And these are, in none of these situations, they're like bad people, right? Or, you know, people with no hope, no chance.

with even horrible things and we don't know like with the With that famous couple. We don't know what's going on behind the scenes sometimes Sometimes it is adultery Sometimes it's more often than not. It's an addiction some kind of ugly behavior, that's just perpetuating and You know there it might be a pornography addiction an alcohol addiction This this is an entry any marriage

screen addiction or a over -the -counter drug addiction or like a pharmaceutical addiction it might be

just let themselves go. And here's the thing, and this is the ticket right here. This matters so much when we leave it to chance, we can only hope for mediocrity at best, but usually disaster and suffering. Now here's the thing. Some of you big, big warning right now. Some of you've been like, maybe thinking right now like, Oh, well good. I'm not leaving mine a chance. And I want to, with love as your coach say, uh, yep, you are.

I'm calling you out. There are extremely few individuals. I worked with people all over the world. I literally get to coach people every single day and I've worked with people all over. It is extremely rare that people are as intentional and deliberate as they need to be. And that's where the greatest danger is. We think that we're not leaving it to chance. We think we're doing enough. But

Rachel Denning (03:55.726)
That is why good marriages fail. I'm sitting here like pounding my fist on my legs, you guys. Come on. I'm getting so fired up about this because it's so sad. It literally breaks my heart. I shed tears all the time because of the suffering that's happening in these marriages and in families. And I'm always inevitably I'm like, that could have been prevented. This is all preventable.

But the only way to prevent it is to be so intentional that you don't leave any part of it to chance. Here's what happens. And this is where, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of marriages that end in divorce early on is like people are trying to figure out how to live with each other. And that's, that's a challenge, right? You're trying to work through that. And a lot of them will be like, Oh man, this is not working in the end. But many of them end at these markers, five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years.

And of course that's not exact science, those aren't exact numbers. But there's these benchmarks you hit or these areas where you just, you've gotten used to each other, you've gotten used to a rhythm and you change, you shift. People change, they transform, they grow, they have different... We go through, literally we're just going through the phases of life, right? If you study anything by Eric Erickson or others,

who just like they just have studied and outlined the journey of human existence. And we all go through the phases of life. We hit certain age marks and ranges and it's where there's these shifts. It's part of the human journey. You just shift and you're like, you know what? I'm moving to a new phase of my life where one phase is like education and growth and learning and another is like growth and expansion and another is like contribution and...

and other like deep reflection. You just go, you go through these phases. And so you got to know that you're going to change. Your spouse is going to change. You're going to go through phases. Your spouse is going to go through phases. Like it's going to happen, but extremely few people are deliberate enough, scheduled enough, planned enough, strategic enough to keep a good marriage good. And like you've heard me say many times, good.

Rachel Denning (06:21.998)
Good is not good enough. Great is not good enough. Because extraordinary is possible.

extraordinary is absolutely possible. And so if it is possible, then good is not good enough, nor is great. And that's the other reason why good marriages fail is because people say, well, it's good. Our marriage is good. And it's good enough. And they may not even use those exact words. They might say, oh, it's good enough. But they have a good enough attitude. They're like, no, things are good.

And so they don't worry about it, they don't plan for it, they don't make it happen.

And again, I just have to reiterate this. If you're not strategic enough, then by default, you are leaving it to chance. Right. It's like the quote I love to share that says an absence of the commitment to excellence is the acceptance of mediocrity. So when we do not deliberately commit to excellence, then we automatically accept mediocrity.

That's what's happening with so many marriages. You're not committed to excellence. At least not with your actions. You're not proving it with your calendar and your patterns and your behaviors and your habits. And you guys in it, in these situations where life is crazy, it is, we get so busy and you throw kids in the mix. It gets crazier. And you know,

Rachel Denning (08:02.446)
We have financial struggles, we as in human beings, we gotta deal with finances, we gotta figure out how to pay for the things we want, we have dreams, we have goals, we're dealing with neighbors, we're dealing with coworkers and bosses and employees, we're dealing with church congregations and humanitarian organizations, we're...

We're trying to make a difference. We're trying, we're dealing with all the stuff our kids do, right? And trying, you're like, well, I didn't see that coming. And things that catch us off guard and sometimes knock us right off our feet. We're dealing with all those things. And in the midst of that craziness of life.

My friends, you and I, we have to be so deliberate and intentional. We have to be so protective of our marriage and we have to invest in it.

And so again, with absolute love, I can confidently say that the vast majority of you, if not all of you, are not doing this well enough. You're not investing enough. You're not protecting your marriage enough. You're not, you're not all in enough. And my warning is if you think you are, if you think you're good enough, if you think you're okay, you're in danger.

Rachel Denning (09:30.606)
And that's true for all of us, right? When we're like, nah, I'm healthy enough. I don't need to fret about eating well and exercising all the time. I'm healthy enough. That's when we get into health problems. We do the same with our kids. We're like, ah, you know, things are, I got good kids. They're good kids. We're good. Everything's good. Like, we're good. And what happens, just that little subtle shift means you start to coast. And my friends, there's only one direction that we can ever coast.

It's down.

Coasting only happens down. So as soon as we start to coast or drift, we start to lose ground fast. And that's where we get into trouble. And that's why we have good marriages that end up fighting intensely, whether it's over finances or sex, which are the two main areas of fighting and contention for marriages, whether it's fighting over the kids, how to raise the kids or dreams or pursuing goals or.

and fighting over lifestyle or direction. Some of us just kind of we let ourselves go a little bit because we're not pursuing personal development. We get into some kind of some ugly habits. Like I just posted this morning on Instagram. And honoree is ugly. Honoree is ugly. There are attitudes that are so attractive. And there are attitudes that are just

so unattractive. They're just ugly. And if we're not careful, if we're not intentional, if we're not deliberate, we're not strategic, it's easy to pick up some ugly attitudes. And then your spouse starts to look at you and your kids start to look at you and like, that's not very attractive. Right? And we have to be attractive. We have to stay attractive to our spouses always. That's one of the big things that spouses drop. They get married and they just drop it.

Rachel Denning (11:31.118)
What are you doing day in and day out to be attractive to your spouse? There's one element I want you to consider, where I think most of us are not being deliberate and intentional enough. What are you doing day in and day out to be attractive to your spouse?

Let's keep going. What is on your calendar that is just for you and your spouse for your marriage? What's on your calendar just for your marriage? Have you planned it? Have you scheduled it? Is it happening? Now that that includes a weekly date at an absolute minimum. Again, that's a minimum.

It's a weekly date.

But what about overnighters? What about trips? I've mentioned this in previous podcasts, so if you've been listening for a while, you've been going through them all, I've mentioned this, but are you doing it? Very few are. Do you have overnighters scheduled? Do you have big trips scheduled? We do our annual big trip, 10 to 14 days with just the two of us, and we lead a couple's trip. There's some exotic, wonderful place.

Are you reading books about marriage? That ought to be just a regular part of your life. Because you are married, you should study marriage. And you're like, well, I did. I read all the marriage books. Man, reread those things. Reading it once doesn't count.

Rachel Denning (13:04.686)
And again, like the goal here is an extraordinary marriage. And so you gotta be reading. You gotta be scheduling these things. What are you doing? I had one of my clients do this and it's like the results are unreal. Like what can you do? And this is on a daily. I challenged them. I said, what can you do daily that is specifically for your spouse?

Right? So what can you do every single day that is only for her or only for him? It's little things. We're talking in some cases just minutes, a few minutes, even a thought. It might be a note. It might be a meal. It might be finishing a little project they're interested in or it might be a gift. Like it.

It really could be anything. It doesn't have to be huge. Some days it'll be bigger than others. But what are you doing every single day that is just for your spouse? What are you doing to really connect on a consistent basis? It is amazing how many couples tell me, I just want to talk. I just want my spouse to open up and share things with me. I just want to connect.

through conversation. I hear that all the time. They just want to connect. Especially I hear that from women.

Men want to connect physically. Well, because it's a huge, it's a huge emotional thing too. Like intimacy, physical intimacy for men is unbelievably huge emotionally. That's a really connect emotionally, but it is very physical. So they're drawn to the physical for that emotional connection. But many women want to connect emotionally first through talking. They want to have these open conversations. In fact, one wonderful lady recently,

Rachel Denning (15:12.27)
expressed to me, she's like, he won't open up to me and talk to me and, you know, share his life and everything he's working on his work, his struggles, his problems, his challenge. He won't share those things with me in conversation. And it makes me hesitant to share my body with him. Right? That's a reality right there that I've heard many times.

Are you connecting in conversation? And not the transactional stuff. You guys have heard me talk about the difference between transactional and transformational, right? Transactionals, you just go through the motions. So you talk about the chores, you talk about the to -do lists, you talk about the kids, you talk about the finances, you talk about the hows, you talk about the errands, you talk about the things that need to get done. But when are you just talking? Just connecting.

When are you doing that?

When are you creating memories together?

Do you have things you do together? Walking, hiking, biking, art, dance, travel? Like, do you have something outside of the transactional that you do together? You should. If you're not, if you're not doing this, I mean, all these things I'm mentioning my friends, I'm like, literally, if you're not doing this, then you're leaving it to chance.

Rachel Denning (16:40.558)
And again, I'm just going to keep reiterating this, whatever you leave to chance, you can expect mediocrity at best.

So I'm with love here and warning calling you out. All these good marriages.

Well, that's the wrong way to say it. Many, many, many good marriages are struggling and ending.

And you talk to me like, yeah, things were good for years. And then they just stopped. So they start to flatline.

and then they start to die. Oh, and then it gets bitter.

Rachel Denning (17:18.445)
Start the the criticism the cynicism the pointing the blaming the accusing the attacking and then the attacks get painful and mean they get vicious and I've seen every step of this process and I get to hear about it where they start they get angry they get upset feel misunderstood they feel neglected they start saying really mean things often things they don't mean

but they're trying they're shooting for triggers and buttons to push and it gets vicious and then it gets wounds and then we live wounds and scars and sometimes it's it's hard to recover from those if not impossible

You with me? Like this is, this is such a big deal.

And again, extremely few people are doing this well enough. They're leaving too much of it to chance.

Are you acknowledging the good, well, let's back up. Are you looking for the good in your spouse? It's easy after you've been together for a long time to start noticing the things you don't like and nitpicking and either you say it out verbally and you just become this nag, right? So you see, here's this pattern I see a lot. You notice something about your spouse and it bothers you and so you nag. And so that's his pattern. So notice.

Rachel Denning (18:49.966)
You know notice bothered nag notice bothered nag and on the other side they're like, oh just constantly nagging and doing this and Everything I do bothers you and then then it just starts to become this bitter cycle Right and in and again, it's after you know, these these time periods of years And and it's got to stop so are you looking for the good in your spouse do you praise?

the good in your spouse.

Like are you honoring that? What is it you admire about your spouse? What is it you honor? What is it you're grateful for? What is it you love?

Do you deliberately, and I would say on a daily basis, just spend the moment stirring up love. A lot of us just let our feelings go bleh. They go numb. They go dull. They flatline. Because you become like roommates. You're like, ah, we've been together forever. Right? And you stop. You stop caring. And again, like this goes both sides, both ways, right?

If I let myself go and I just, I'm not taking care of myself. I'm not being healthy. I'm not being classy. I'm not being refined. I just kind of let my worst behaviors come out. If I don't hold myself to a high standard, then it's easy for Rachel to look at me and be like, man, come on, why are you being a schmuck? Right? And it's hard to stir up love if I'm, if I'm behaving poorly. But then even if you are, you're, you're good. Do you intentionally deliberately stir up love? Do you?

Rachel Denning (20:33.166)
Because you guys love is a choice. We are not victims of our emotions. We are not victims of our emotions. Love is not something you fall into and fall out of. Right? Our feelings come from our thoughts. Our thoughts are these sentences that are optional sentences that we attach meaning to.

Choose your love and love your choice.

Oh man, we can go on and on, right? This is why we, Rach and I created how to create an extraordinary marriage course. That's why we created this because we saw, well, one for ourselves. We knew the elements that we had to be deliberate about in order to have an extraordinary marriage. And so we wrote about it and read about it and wrote about it and read about it and shared it with others, you know.

For years and years and years all over the world people would ask they need help it come to us I'm struggling with marriage struggling with this or they'd notice something about us. How do you guys do that? How do you keep happy? How do you love each other? How do you stay in love? How do you make this happen? And this has been such a huge deal for me since I was little because my parents got divorced around the time I was born and Then stepdads came and went so I saw marriage and divorce patterns and I never wanted any of that Like I ended up out on my own at 16 because of that

And so I wanted to be so intentional and deliberate about not allowing it to happen to me. So we created the how to create a strong marriage course. And we go through like comb through detail Lee and detailed Lee. I think I just made that word up. We go through in detail, thoroughly all about your mindset. Like the first module is all about your mind, making sure the way you think about yourself, the way you think about your spouse and the way you think about marriage and the way you think about life and the way you think about family.

Rachel Denning (22:21.87)
is all healthy because it'll start there. If you, if it's off, if you start getting some disconnects in there, like I'm seeing in a lot of marriages with couples I'm working with right now, if it's off, Oh man, watch out. There's a lot of hurt coming because it'll lead to negative feelings, which lead to negative actions, to negative patterns and habits. And then it's a cycle of destruction and misery. And so then we talk about emotions. Module two is all about your feelings, your emotions.

how you feel about yourself, how you feel about your spouse, how you feel about your marriage, how you feel about your family, how you feel about your life. And you all know this, when you feel crappy, oh man, it affects every part of your life.

And then we talk about trust. We talk about habits. We go through all these habits and patterns that we slip into and how these little habits and patterns over years, you know, like we're talking about marriage, you've been married five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, those little habits get ingrained and they become ruts. Or they, if they're good habits, they become ingrained and they become tracks that keep you moving in the direction. Right. So you can, you can have speed or you can be stuck.

And those habits matter so much. And then we talk about lifestyle. Some of you are just bored out of your minds. You become extremely transactional, whether it's five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20. And again, I mean, those aren't exact numbers, right? It might be 12, it might be 16, it might be 18, it might be seven. You get stuck in these lifestyle ruts.

and you're bored out of your mind. You're unfulfilled. Both sides, man or woman. It's just bleh. And so it feels bleh. And if your lifestyle, for you individually, for yourself as a, for your couple, for your marriage, right, and for your family, if your lifestyle is bleh, then your marriage is gonna be bleh. Life bleh. Your organs is bleh. This is all bleh, right? This place is lame. That's no way to live.

Rachel Denning (24:35.118)
And so you have to have that lifestyle piece. You have to be strategic. Too many of you are leaving that to chance. You're leaving your mindset to chance. You're leaving your emotions to chance. You're just allowing them to happen to you without being really intentional and calculated monitoring, guarding your thoughts and feelings, generating those feelings, not just playing the victim to them, not just letting them happen.

and trust like making and keeping commitments and habits and patterns. You're just kind of letting the habits happen. Please don't do that. Do not let the habits happen. And then lifestyle. You're just kind of letting that well, what are we going to do? I have to go to this job. I hate this job. I pay the bills. Dumb neighborhood. I don't want to be in. If you're living somewhere you don't want to live, man, just evaluate that and say, let's let's make things up. Let's go somewhere we want to go. Have a big dream.

That's marriages that are extraordinary or marriages that have big dreams and they're chasing them. Marriages that stay mediocre or fail are just when they've kind of given up hope on dreams and they're just kind of, they're transactional. They're not transformational. They're just going along. And then the last module is all about sex. Good sex is an absolutely essential part of an extraordinary marriage. It has to be. It's just a part, but it is an extremely important part.

And it needs to be understood. It is getting so distorted and so corrupted because of pornography addictions.

And yeah, that's just a huge problem. It literally rewires the brain and distorts all the imagery and those things. It's a huge problem. Health problems get in the way of that. And mindset, emotions, lifestyle habits, it all gets in the way of that. And it's a big piece. And so it's causing a massive problem for so many good couples. And so we go through that whole module. So like you guys, I can, I can with total confidence recommend that course. If you don't have it yet, please get it. Just.

Rachel Denning (26:42.861)
Go to our websites, you can get it at courses .extraordinaryfamilylife .com, you can get it at gregdanning .com. Go get that course. It's one of the best investments you'll ever make. And then go through it. Go through it together, go through it individually, and then if you already have it, and if you get it, repeat it. Go through it regularly. It's something you should review every year.

And you ought to be, I mean, and the fact you're listening to this podcast, fantastic. Well done. Way to go. Like, and share this, share this message. Please share this message. Everyone who's married needs to have this reminder that if good marriages will fail when they're just left to chance and the vast majority of people aware of it or not are leaving their marriages to chance because well, for the most part, they don't know how to be.

deliberate and intentional and strategic to set up systems and plans and schedules. Oh my friends, marriage is so wonderful and so important and so beautiful or it's so painful and so miserable and it's dead and it just gets flat and you feel like roommates or then you become enemies which is even worse.

And I want to invite you and you can this is totally possible for all of you. Even if you're the only one that starts working on it, you can do this. You can, you can bring the tide. Like I like to say, you can bring the tide and raise all the boats in your family, including your marriage. If you're the only one working on it. And it, but we have to be involved in personal development and marriage development and family development.

But you can bring back the spark and the romance that you had when you were first dating and engaged and first married. That giddy, loving feeling again.

Rachel Denning (28:42.445)
where you're just passionately excited. There's spark, there's romance, you're best friends, you're connecting.

You're connecting mentally, you're connecting emotionally, you're connecting socially, you're connecting spiritually, you're connecting physically. This is possible. I want to challenge you to do that. I want to invite you to do that. I want to warn you that you have to do it. Good marriages will fail if they're left to chance. So my friends, let's be more strategic, right? Cause awesome is always an option. It's always an option.

And every day it comes down to our training, like how we're training ourselves, how we're training our spouse, how we're training our marriage together, we're training our family lives. And we've got to make that happen. With your marriage, you will not rise to your hopes and expectations. You will live and fall back to the level of training, what you're putting in day in and day out. So when, when it hits, when something hits, whether it's a financial crisis or a faith crisis, when something hits, your marriage will fall.

to the level of the training. So let's be more strategic. Let's build absolutely extraordinary marriages where we wake up every day. Imagine this. Imagine waking up every day totally in love with your spouse and going to bed every night. Just so grateful, so honored, so blessed, so in love and ready for another exciting day. It's possible, my friends. Let's make it happen. It won't happen by default. It won't happen by accident. It won't happen by itself. We gotta make it happen.

So let's invest. Love you guys. Reach upward.