How can we avoid the danger of neglecting our marriage when our hands are full, especially with child-rearing?
Intro
The “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast is a family discipleship resource from Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, that aims to equip you and your family to be on mission with God, to the end of the street, and the ends of the earth.
Andy Owens
Welcome back to another episode of “Gospel Shaped Home.” We’re really thankful that you’ve joined us. And I am joined again by Brian and Tabatha Frost. Welcome back, guys.
Tabatha Frost
Thank you.
Brian Frost
Yeah, absolutely.
Andy
So we have four kids, right? When we came back from Turkey nearly two years ago, my youngest child, Micah, he was almost four at the time, was trying to get his bearings at Providence. And you know, we have two Brians on staff, Bryan Nelson and Brian Frost. And so we had started using the terms, Nelly and Frosty as shorthand designations in the house to make it clear. And one day, Micah or someone had said, “Brian, pastor Brian.” And Mike said, “You mean the one with the frosty hair?” So we had a conversation recently, Brian, about how your name, obviously, Frost, it could be frosty for that, but there’s a little bit of a shine to the gray.
Brian
There is.
Andy
You know, it’s not just gray, it’s frosty.
Tabatha
A sign of wisdom
Brian
I think it’s Solomon who said it’s a crown of wisdom, so I’m going to go with that.
Andy
Well, we’re glad you’re here to share some of that wisdom with us, brother. Thank you. Today, I want to talk about how to cultivate a healthy marriage when you’re busy. Most of the families at Providence have a lot going on, especially if you’ve got young kids in the home, it’s just really easy to let your marriage kinda fall to the wayside, to fall into disrepair, to not be intentional, to not be attentive, to cultivating intimacy and health in your marriage. And so I just want to ask you guys, how did you, and how can families at Providence cultivate marital health when you’re busy?
Tabatha
I think that’s such a great, great question. I want to start answering that first.
Andy
Go for it.
Tabatha
Because you’ve heard the term, the squeaky wheel.
Andy
Because you’re afraid Brian will say everything.
Tabatha
That’s right. I’ve got to get my words in when I can. You know you hear the phrase, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. And when you’re raising kids, they squeak a lot, and so they tend to get a lot of our attention. And so I think it’s so important to prioritize your spouse, especially during the season when the kids are young, but even as the kids get older because you want to model that for your kids, I think. If you’re not careful, the only time you have one on one time together is when your kids are asleep, and then they don’t recognize that you are prioritizing your spouse.
So one thing that we did, especially, and we started it when our kids were really little. And our kids are very close in age right now, they’re 17, 18 and 19, so at one point, they were one, two and three. But when the kids were really little, we started to daily, have couch time. And what we would do on the couch was we would talk, we would go over what we’ve been doing during the day. It wasn’t the time when I just spewed all the bad things that the kids had been doing. That’s not what we used it for. We used it to show our kids that we were prioritizing each other. And our kids could be in the room with us, but we didn’t let to be on the couch with us.
So let me start over. What it looked like was when Brian would come home from work, he would greet the kids because I taught those kids to want their daddy to be home and to be excited when their daddy was home because then someone else could have…
Andy
You were excited when daddy gets home.
Tabatha
I was very excited when daddy would get home. So I was like, “Yay, daddy’s home.” And he would hug him. He’d wrestle with him. He’d play with him for just a few minutes. And then he’d say, “Okay, it’s time for mommy.” And the boys had to leave dad. They could be in the room with us when they were little. As they grew older, we wouldn’t even let them be in the room with us because we wouldn’t be able to concentrate on what we were trying to say to each other.
But when they were little, we’d let them be in the room with us, but we wouldn’t let them be on the couch with us. We wouldn’t let him interrupt our conversation. And this didn’t just happen. We had to train them. And it was only for 15 minutes. And probably when we started, it may have started out as five or 10 minutes, so you kind of have to gradually build up, get your kids used to the fact that daddy’s my priority right now. And I’m daddy’s priority, and you need to give us time together. And so that was something we did every day, at least every workday.
But that was a little thing. You know, in order to prioritize your spouse, it doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. The daily little things, I think, make a big difference, but we also had monthly dates, yearly trips, and other things. Brian, you want to talk about our monthly dates and how they changed throughout the years?
Brian
Yeah. I think one thing on that time when you just prioritize each and every day is that we wanted our kids to see that we loved each other, that we had this amazing relationship that was real, that was full of grace. It was certainly full of hope. And so instead of just waiting for them to be in bed, we chose to intentionally give a few moments when I got home to show them that we really did enjoy actually being together.
And so each month when they were young, we had two dates. Normally they were outside of the house, and they don’t have to be expensive. They don’t always have to be super creative. It’s just intentional time where we had a lot of amazing people from church who love to care for our kids because they cared for us, and so that really provided us just a great opportunity. And so at least twice a month, we would go out and just spend time with each other.
As our kids grew, though, it just got harder and harder to do that twice a month. And so what we actually moved to was one date outside of the house and one date in. And so what we would do is on the one inside the house, we would put the kids down for bed, and then we would talk, and we would pray for the kids. We would pray for things in our life. And then we would just talk about things like faith and finances, fitness, our family, and our friends. And so…
Andy
Those all start with F by the way.
Brian
They did, they all start, yeah. So I got that from Dave Owen.
Andy
A preacher at heart.
Brian
Exactly.
Tabatha
That’s right.
Brian
Yeah.
Andy
Dave is a master of alliteration.
Brian
Exactly. And so we did that monthly, and then we did trips. And for trips, even when they were little, we had trips where we would certainly have the whole family there. But at least one time a year, we would just, at times it was just one weekend. Sometimes it was a full week, though, where we went. And they were really meaningful times, not only for us, and for our marriage, and for rest, but it also was really informative to them in terms of the priority that we had…
Tabatha
For each other.
Brian
Yeah.
Tabatha
I think it was also good because it helped give our kids confidence in knowing that they were okay when they were with us. And they were okay when we were not with them. We were very blessed in that we had friends that we felt comfortable with keeping our children. And obviously, you want to be careful who you’d leave your children with. My parents were also very helpful and willing to come and watch our kids for us. I do want to say something about the dates. We did talk about our finances, and our faith, and our friends, and our family, and our fitness, but we also had fun.
Andy
That also starts with F.
Tabatha
That also starts with F. We would watch movies together. Sometimes we would read books or watch video series together and discuss it. But our date times changed throughout the years as well. When the kids were little and they’d go to bed early, we would do it at night when the boys were down for bed. That’s when we would have our time together. But as the kids grew up, Brian had Fridays off because obviously, Sunday is a workday. And so our date time moved to Friday mornings when the kids were in school or things like that, so it changed. And you kind of have to…
Andy
Is that when Brian started taking you to the Y for a date?
Tabatha
I know. It’s very exciting. That way we could knock out fun and fitness at the same time.
Andy
That’s right, at the same time.
Tabatha
Exactly. So we had to figure out what worked best for our schedule based on the ages and stages of our kids, but things changed.
Andy
So, you’ve got a daily rhythm couch time. You’ve got kind of a monthly rhythm of these dates, whether sometimes in the house, sometimes out of the house, and then your annual vacation trip sort of rhythms. What else? Any other things you guys did?
Tabatha
So we also like doing projects together, but when our kids were young, sometimes the projects were intentional hospitality. And so we wanted our kids to see us working towards that together. And when we were hospitable, we would have friends over. And the kids would be able to see us preparing for it together. So it wasn’t that as the mom, I had to do all the cooking. I had to do all the cleaning. I had to do all the prepping. No, Dad, Brian did that with me. And so that was something that it was kind of a common goal that helped to just increase our love for each other as we we’re working on a common goal together.
So we wanted our kids to see us doing that. Now they see us. One of the things we liked doing together is home improvement projects. And so sometimes our dates are, let’s see, we discussed family, fun, fitness, and fixer-uppers. I guess you could put that in as another F. How does that work?
Andy
Fixer-uppers, there you go.
Tabatha
Building a patio, painting a room, working on my kitchen.
Andy
Well, I think it’s really helpful to think about not everything is just inward focused with your marriage, but you guys, side by side, are doing meaningful things together. When you mentioned hospitality, you’re investing in others together, and that’s another way to bring kids in as well. As they get older, you can, you know when we were in Turkey, we would, all the time, prepare together. I shouldn’t say all the time. There were times when Erica did most or all of the preparation, but a lot of times we would prepare together for guests to come over or to go to someone’s house. And we would talk as a family, pray, “Hey, how can you be a blessing to this family who’s coming? How can you honor the Lord as we’re together with them.” And so them seeing you guys united in purpose, I think it’s very good.
Tabatha
Yeah. I want to give a shout out right now to our singles at Providence because when our kids were little, we were in the Singles Ministry. And so for those of you who are married and parenting, maybe consider the singles in your life that would love to feel like they’re part of your family. Include them in part of your family events like the holidays. And look around and see the singles because they might be your best source of babysitting, and they would probably love to be part of your family. So consider that when you’re thinking about babysitters as well.
Andy
That’s good.
Brian Frost:
That’s good.
Andy
That’s good. Okay. Any final encouragements or thoughts on this, how to cultivate a healthy marriage when you’re busy?
Tabatha
Just do it. It doesn’t have to be big.
Brian
That’s true. And I think that we, for 22 years, we really do love each other, and we like each other. And so these things that we did to show priority was not obligation. It was a lot of enjoyment. But what it also did, which I think is so important, is it shows the kids is that they are a part of something that’s healthy and that we…
Andy
It doesn’t depend on them.
Brian Frost:
Correct.
Tabatha
That’s right.
Brian
Yeah. That’s exactly right.
Andy
Good. Okay. Well, thank you guys so much for being here. And thank you for joining. I hope to see you next time on the Gospel Shaped Home.
Outro
Thanks for listening to this episode of the “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast, produced by Providence Baptist Church of Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information and resources from Providence, visit us online at pray.org. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.