S3E5: Happily Even After: Angie Clayton Shares How God Redeemed Her Marriage From the Brink of Divorce

First comes love, then comes marriage...and for many of us, this is where it ends because we haven't thought beyond the fairytale. And neither did our guest Angie Clayton. Take a listen as Angie shares how God worked through she and her husband's mess, became the center of their union and is blessing them exceedingly, abundantly beyond their wildest dreams. Angie touches on some tough topics for us as women like submission, follow where he leads, lay your weapons down, and taking the first step towards healing (yeah, even if your husbands 99% of the problem). A few ouch moments but many more aha ones! You'll laugh, you'll cry and we pray you'll go love up your hubby a bit more too. 

You can follow Angie on social media @angie_clayton_author and checkout her blog posts and books here - https://angieclayton.net/. 

As always, Annie and I would love to hear from you. How have you been able see beautiful again, even after a traumatic or hurtful experience? Please share your story with us on IG @davenialeawrites, or on FB @annieraney.

Finally, your reviews mean the world to us, and they also assist us in spreading God's message of hope and victory across the globe! So please leave us a review on your favorite podcast player or on our Podcast Webpage 

Tell us what you think of this episode and we'd also love to hear your story!

Today's episode song is Sweet Symphony by Joy Oladokun and Chris Stapleton. Please note this song is for your listening enjoyment only and cannot be downloaded or shared.

Thanks for listening! From our hearts to yours!!

Transcript

Annie: Welcome to the Didn't Ask to Be a Hero podcast. I'm your host, Annie Raney. In each episode, we will get an opportunity to see how ordinary women are now living amazing, abundant, and extraordinary lives with God's help. May their stories serve to encourage and inspire you. Let's get started. Hello, listeners. As you recognized our pattern for this season of our podcast, Divinia and I are both going to host this together. And it's kind of perfect because of the topic today. Let me ask you a question, listeners, and especially. I guess I'm especially talking to my female listeners, but anybody. When I was a little girl, one of my most fun dreams was about getting married. You know, the white dress, the veil, the lace, just everything beautiful about it. Why Cinderella was my favorite and her Prince Charming and. And how they got together and Snow White and her prince and, you know, then they lived happily ever after. Ever heard those words? So as I grew older and started to look at marriages around me and, you know, I still wanted to get married, and I couldn't wait. I. I would focus a lot on the wedding ceremony. Is that the same as a marriage? So Divinia and I started talking, and we both admitted that marriage wasn't like the fairy tales. And so we started to read a book together called Divino. Do you remember the title of the book of the author?

Davenia: Yes. The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormy Omar.

Annie: And let's see, they're like 30, 35 chapters in the book. We said, we're going to read this in a month or, you know, maybe a little bit more like five weeks. We'll read a chapter a day and send each other messages about what we learned and what we could take away from it. And we started this about three weeks ago. And what chapter are we in, Divinia?

Davenia: Still in chapter one.

Annie: Why? Because we're lazy readers. I don't think so. Why are we still in chapter one?

Davenia: We are still in chapter one because chapter one focuses all on us and our role in marriage and the things we need to do and surrender and.

Angie: Yeah.

Davenia: We haven't gotten beyond chapter one. Yes.

Annie: Intense. And it has a. Yeah. Looking at ourselves when we are trying to look at the husbands and, you know, he's the problem, so let's pray about them. But we are so delighted that we have a guest today who is going to talk to us about and share with us her experience, her knowledge and. And how things have evolved with her marriage. And Divinia, you want to go ahead and introduce her?

Davenia: Yeah. So I am Delighted to introduce my friend, my editor, Angie Clayton, and we had the privilege of meeting. She facilitated a progress pod for writers that I was a part of for a bit. Our professional relationship grew, but so did our friendship. And we just got to talking about life and particularly about marriage and when she shared her story and her journey, like, and you've got to meet her. And so here we are.

Speaker D: Well, we. I do. I do have a story of redemption. I have story of redemption of my own. I had. My husband has a story of his own redemption, but our marriage has a story of redemption. That's pretty incredible.

Annie: So, Angie, before we get into. Into depth about what you went through, tell us a little bit about who you are. Like, where you born, maybe what schooling was like. Where'd you major in. In college? I mean, from the way you're sounding. Am I. I'm thinking, oh, is she a marriage therapist? Tell us a little bit about who you were growing up in college and things.

Speaker D: I was. I'm the oldest of three kids. I grew up out in the country in a little town in Nebraska, basically in a cornfield. Go Huskers. If anybody out there's a Nebraska fan. Anyway, I went to a little country school of the kind that don't ex anymore, I don't think, in a pretty small high school. And then I got married right out of high school. It was a mistake, I will tell you that. But at the end of those five years of marriage, I had two kiddos, and that's all that. That's a whole podcast in and of itself. But at the end of that time, I did leave and I moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where KU Kansas University is. And eventually down the road, I did get my degree in accounting. I'm a cpa.

Annie: So wait, you are a cpa? Certified. What is that?

Speaker D: Public accountant.

Annie: I thought so. Certified public accountant.

Speaker D: After I just said math was hard, right?

Annie: Yeah. I was just like, wait, she talked about math. Oh, wow.

Speaker D: But then after I'd been doing that for a while, my husband and I bought a business together. And at the end of that time, which wasn't very long, only about three years, but during that time, we found out that we could work together really well. And that's not something that all couples can do and we've heard a million times, oh, my goodness, how can you do that? It worked for us. It still works for us, even in spite of everything that came to pass after that. But when we let that business go is when God got a hold of us in the year 2000 and so everything changed. We both came home, started home businesses. He did one thing, I did another. Long story short, I ended up in women's ministry, which is where the therapist is coming in. I spent a lot of time counseling a lot of women about really hard things and not. It's not a profession. I was all lay counseling. It's just the wisdom of gathered experience in a big rearview mirror, you know?

Annie: Yeah, I like it. So you were married, you said, straight out of high school for about five years and had two kids. And then, so now what encouraged you to. You realized it was a mistake and then what encouraged you to say, okay, that was a mistake, but let me try it again?

Speaker D: I don't know. He was really cute.

Annie: Yes.

Speaker D: I don't know. You gotta understand, I was 17, I graduated a year early. So I was 17 when I got married. So that makes me what, 22 when I got a divorce. So most people are just getting around to being a grown up. And I had two little kids by then and we met in a really interesting way and he just kind of swept me off my feet. And we dated for about two years. And you know, he was, I'll tell you what, he was everything my ex husband wasn't. And that's a good word of caution because sometimes we jump out of the frying pan and into the fire because this guy over here doesn't have, doesn't have any of those horrible things that, that we saw in this relationship. And so he must be good. Okay, well then that's not the case for my husband. But that, that could have easily been the case because I did, I just didn't want to repeat that. I didn't know that I was getting something better. I just knew that I didn't want that again. Wow.

Davenia: Wow. Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And that is good advice that we should, you know, stop and analyze and think and have that time to heal. And it sounds like you had some time at least to understand what you didn't want.

Speaker D: Yes.

Davenia: Getting into the next relationship.

Speaker D: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I'd gotten that far. I knew what I didn't want, what I did want. It turns out I couldn't know that then. Right?

Davenia: Yeah.

Speaker D: Okay.

Davenia: Okay, so keep going. So you all meet you.

Speaker D: Okay, so we did. He swept me off my feet, fell in love. We got married in a park. But I worked at a law firm at that time and one of the lawyers that I worked for married us. He was judge for they. And so anyway, we've been married. We got married in 88. So we have been married for. We call it BC and AJ that part of our marriage. Because before Christ. Yeah. Was 88 to 2000. And then Jesus got a hold of us in 2000, everything changed. Completely different marriage after that. And so we kind of have the tale of three marriages. Honestly, we have this back one over here, which is a lot of junky stuff that I don't even want to talk about because it doesn't matter, because God saved us from all that. He redeemed us from all that. He doesn't remember it. Why should I? You know, and it doesn't do anybody any good to hear about those details, at least not in a public setting. I'm not opposed to talking if it will help someone, but we tend to leave that stuff out of our testimony because the good part is what happened then. You know, God just reached down and he got ahold of me first. And then my husband is a pastor's kid, and he figured out that I was reading the Bible. And he said, he'll tell you. His first thought was, I'm going to have to divorce her, too. So I was hiding. I was, like, hiding that I was reading the Bible because I couldn't get enough of it right. And. And I'm just being quiet. I don't know what to do. I'm too scared to. I'm too scared to do anything or say anything because I don't. I don't know how he's going to react. And what happened was there's a passage in First Peter that talks about husbands being one without a word from their wives. And that is what happened. That passage came true for us. And it's not because I studied what submission was supposed to look like. It's not because somebody came alongside me and said, oh, no. Yeah, you have to be quiet if you're going to be a good Christian woman. You have to be quiet. No, it was. It purely had to have been the work of the Lord, because I just shut up because I didn't know what else to do or say. And that was the thing that changed everything for my husband. So, I don't know. It's a very cool story. We love our story. And then we went along for about. I don't know, call it 20 more years. Oh, pretty good.

Davenia: Okay, wait, but. And I've heard that story. And so you were silent.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Davenia: And potentially out of fear, too, like changing. But he. He's. He hasn't. And will he want to change with Me, Will he accept me? And. And so what was going through his head at this time?

Speaker D: You know, it was a very scary time for me because I knew that I had been changed. You know, inside out, head to toe, top to bottom. There was nothing the same about me. But what. What he said to me, the day. The day that he will tell you was his day. He was standing out in the driveway, we will both remember it clears day, washing his trailer with a hose. And he turned around, he looked at me, such a sad look on his face. He said, I feel like I've lost my girlfriend. And you know what, you guys, what could I say to that? Because he was no longer my first love, right? Jesus was my first love now. And so, see, I can even cry just thinking about it. So I didn't say anything. I just stood there with tears just running down my face. And somehow God used that to break through the barriers in his heart, to realize that he needed what I had too.

Annie: I want to ask Angie, and I respect, you know, privacy, not to share personal details, but something's just itching me to ask this in general. So before bc. Okay, as you said in your marriage, before Christ came into your marriage.

Davenia: You.

Annie: Said it was just different. Can I just ask in general again, without revealing any personal relationship details between you and your husband in general, what might people who don't have Christ in. In the center of their marriage, is it. Is it the behavior? Is it the way they treat each other, the food they eat? I mean, what is that would be not good?

Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's really good. I'm glad you asked me that. Because what happens is we weaponize, right? We weaponize ourselves with whatever. Whatever we're the best at. In my case, it's words. I'm really good with words, so I. My words were weapons. Now let me go back and say for all the difficulties that I've had with Greg, my husband's name's Greg. There has never, ever been a hand laid on each other by either one of us. Okay? So everything I'm saying today, if that's what's happening to you, I just have to stop and say that right now. If there's abuse going on, this is all out the window. You need to get help. You need to get away, and you need to get help. I lived that, too. Okay? That's not what we're talking about now. So what we did is that we weaponized the things that we were the best at. And some of it was words. My husband's pretty good with words, too. Some of it is just underlying anger and hurt wounds that we carried with us that we would use to just spew poison really onto each other. We didn't trust each other, not because either one of us had done anything to cause that distress, but because we had prior spouses who were not trustworthy. My thing was as a woman, you know, I'm every bit as good as you, mister, and maybe even a little bit better. So let's just keep this on some equal footing, by the way. And number two, I am never going to need you. I am never going to need a man again. So you just need to know that right now. That's not a healthy way to start a marriage, folks. But that's how we started our marriage. And I will tell you that one or the other of us had our suitcase out from under the bed really often in those first probably five years. Really often.

Annie: You know, you mentioned that this wedding, right. Was in a park, which sounds like it's probably was probably beautiful. And yes, because I could just imagine that was so beautiful. And on that day, you have, you and your husband both have all this. I mean, most people, I would say the majority are just, just ecstatic on their wedding day. The, the beauty of it and everything in terms of the whole ceremony itself and then the hope that, wow, we're getting married, we're going to be together and build this great life. So when did you realize that, man? What happened to that perfect wedding day and the difference between a wedding day versus a marriage?

Speaker D: Yeah, I don't know. About a week later. I don't know. You know, you got to realize we had a ready make family. I had two kids and he had one. My. I had a boy and a girl and he had a son and they were all preschool school age. None of them were in school yet when we got together. And so we went from trying to manage kind of single parent not very well, I will say, single parent households to just like combining all of this mess into one thing and you know, whose kids are, who's to discipline and whose job is what. And I mean, we just had a lot of stuff we should have figured out before we got married.

Annie: Perfect as the Baby Brady Bunch they made it look.

Speaker D: No, no, no. I don't know. Jan and Marsha. No, not so much. Not so much. So I will tell you one cool. Let me just say one cool thing though. Greg adopted both my kids within a year after we got married. So that that man that I was married to is. It was out of the picture from the time my oldest one was 5 years old and has never been back since. And so he's the only dad they knew. And I'm so very, very grateful for that. That made our lives. That made our marriage easier. That made our lives easier, to certainly make the kids lives better.

Annie: That's wonderful. And like you said, you had a lot of. You have children, but even people who don't have any kids and they come into a marriage pretty soon, they start to realize, whoa, this is a lot of work. I have a job. What am I doing? Working at home.

Speaker D: Yeah. And why. Why isn't he doing anything? Why am I doing all the things.

Annie: Oh, did that thought go through?

Speaker D: Ed, don't. Yeah, of course. Of course. What, you think just because I'm a girl, I'm gonna do all that now? I promise you, in his head, he's going. Do you think just because I'm a boy, I have to mud lawn every week? Yeah, is what I would have said. So we fought. We fought for power. It was a power struggle. That's my best way to describe our marriage before Jesus was. It was a constant power struggle, even in terms of who was making, you know, ends meet better. And, I don't know, it was just. Everything was a battle. And, you know, we had. It's interesting because we had a couple of really, really hard things happen within, not. Not our marriage itself, but that affected our marriage big time. That we weathered that we survived, that we actually made it through that. Honestly, looking back, we never should have made it through. And so I can. I can look all the way back then, even though we weren't paying any attention to God, he was paying attention to us because he preserved us through those awful things in order that I'm sitting here today.

Annie: You know, you mentioned how you were. Your story of how Christ came into your heart, and you were kind of secretly, you know, falling in love with him, if you will, and then your husband did. So now I like that you both had to fall in love with Jesus on your own. So how do you then, as Jesus is becoming the center of your own universe and your own individual life, how do you bring him into a marriage?

Speaker D: You know, that is. That's. Oh, my gosh, that's such a good question. It's so important because it's not automatic. That does not happen automatically. And some of it is personality types, right? Of the husband, of the wife. Some of it is. And I know people don't like to hear about submission, but some of it is a really A true understanding of what that is. Only one person can be in charge. Right. That's the way God meant it to be. That's the way he designed it. Only one can be, only one can be in charge. And ultimately I want that one to be. Of course I want it to be me. But at the end of the day, you know what? He has to stand before God and answer for that.

Davenia: Yeah.

Speaker D: And so am I going to keep, you know, fighting him to do his job. It's hard enough to do for him to do his job. But you know what? If I don't get out of the way, he might just let me do it because it's easier, because I just want. I won't stop talking, you know, or telling him what to do or nagging him or whatever. Oh my gosh, was I ever a neck. I hope I'm not still, but yeah.

Davenia: Yeah, I think earlier you said it. It becomes this fight for power, really. And a lot of times we can't identify that that's what it is. But in reality that's what we're doing. Whether it's outwardly or passively. It's this tug of. I don't know if I trust you with my heart. I do know. I do know that I'm capable and I'm strong and I'm able. So I, I want to maintain control, at least control of me and, and.

Speaker D: Yeah, for sure of me and preferably you.

Davenia: I mean, let's be honest, me and the.

Speaker D: For myself. I mean, I'm, I'm a fairly strong personality and I was, I was raised to be a strong, capable woman. And you know, I, because of when I was born, I graduated late early 1980s. And so we were kind of past the 60s, but you know, we were full steam ahead, women on the career path and all of that. And you know, not, not so much home and hearth anymore and, but still at the same time there was this feeling of we still were fighting for it, you know, we were fighting for that equality in the culture or whatever. And, and that carried over, I think, into my home. It did. I think it probably carried over into a lot of homes then. And then it trickles down also. And. Yeah. Trickles down, yeah.

Annie: You know, speaking of what you were saying how it used to be easy, if we think of our parents generation or those born in, let's say born Prior to the 50s, the man was automatically, even in non Christian homes, the head of the household, he brought home the money and the woman was the housewife. And then as you Mentioned equality started being a fight for women and they were like, hey, we can work too. And more women started, you know, working. In fact, then it. Some women even are the bigger breadwinners of the household. And yet, according to the Bible, men are supposed to be the head of the household. So how do we find and have you and your husband? How do you find the balance between, you know, like, women working, earning money, maybe just as much as the man, if not more, and yet he is still the head of the household. Does that mean that we are subservient and just obey him and bow our heads when he walks in the room? What does it mean?

Speaker D: No, it hundred percent does not mean that. What? We're a partnership. I mean, we really are. And I don't really make hardly any money right now, so. But there was a time when I did. But that is that. Well, first of all, it's God's money, but then it's our money together. We never. We never have looked at it as yours and mine. And I know some people do. And I think that would be a lot harder, you know, to overcome if. If that was the case. But we're. Yeah. Okay, so we're partnership. Right. And so what that means is I get to have input into a decision. He gets to have input into a decision. But at the end of the day, who has to make the decision? He does. And I have to say, okay, he's. I know he's heard me. I know he's listened to me. I trust him to make the best decision he possibly can. And that is his job. That is my job.

Davenia: And that comes from that relationship of, of building that trust. Right. Because I have to also trust and believe that he really does have my best interest at heart.

Speaker D: Yes.

Davenia: That sometimes, even though it may not be what he wants, but he's making a tough decision because he's considered me, my feelings, what I want, the family, what's best, the vision, his time with God. And I have to believe he's done all those things so that when, whatever the answer is, then whether I like it or not, I trust that he came to that decision with my best interest in mind.

Speaker D: Yes, that's exactly right. And I imagine we'll get to this later, but one of the. One of the most important things Greg and I have learned is to always assume the best. Right? Assume the best. Unless you give me a reason not to. Divinia. I assume the best about you, Annie. I'm going to assume the best about you unless you give me a reason. Not to. Because otherwise we're just suspicious people. And suspicious people don't make for good marriage partners.

Davenia: Or if you're in a relationship where that your. Your spouse hasn't made good decisions and they are, and they don't have that connection with Christ themselves, so then they're functioning out of a place of selfishness. Or, and, and, and so then it's hard to build that trust muscle because over and over again you've shown me that you don't have my best interest.

Speaker D: Yes. And that, and that is really hard. And so what do you do then? How do you learn how to submit? Well, you know, in those kinds of circumstances, because that I. I just gave you the pretty picture, the easy version. Right. But it's not always that neat and tidy. And, and so, but see, at the end of the day, it sort of is because our responsibility is the same again, excluding any kind of abusive situation. Because what can happen and what I've seen happen, not, not just in our marriage, but in a lot of the marriages of the women that I've worked with, is that when we change, they change. When we change, they change.

Davenia: That's that. Chapter one. Annie, maybe if we get past somebody gotta go first. Yeah. And sometimes it has to be, are you Will.

Speaker D: Are we willing? Are we willing? Is it worth it? Is our marriage worth it? Do we want to fight for our marriages? Is it worth it to go first? Yeah, usually it is.

Annie: That's a lot of swallowing pride, isn't it?

Speaker D: Oh, wow, you guys. So much. So much. And so let me go back to one thing. Let's say we. Let's say we get it right. We. We have the discussion and this was the easier version of it. Right. And. And we get our input and he decides to do it differently than what. What we had hoped for, but we trust him and it's still okay. And it was a bad decision. Then what. What am I going to do then? Because that's every bit as important as how I behaved around the decision or before the decision. I don't say to him, listen to me. I knew. I told. Tried to tell you. No, what then? What you do is you come around him and support him and love him and respect him and help him to understand that he doesn't have to be scared the next time.

Davenia: Yeah.

Annie: Angie, I wanted to ask you. I remember one of the pieces of advice that my mom gave me, which was easy for me to hear in, you know, the beginning days of my marriage, and it still is, but one thing she said was, no matter what happens between you two when you are in front of others outside of your marriage, be it the children, be it relatives, be it friends, be it a work party, wherever you are. She said, do not ever disagree with him in a mean way. I mean, you could disagree in terms of an intelligent conversation, but not in a. In a disrespectful way. Do not ever disrespect him by saying something in public if you totally disagree with him. She said, when you go home, you know, have the discussion in the privacy of your bedroom about, just between the two of you, what do you think about that piece of advice?

Speaker D: You know what? That's. That is a. That's an excellent piece of advice. Go, mama. Because it is so demeaning and disrespectful. Well, it depends on how it's done, but in general, it's. It's probably going to be disrespectful to him. And we know there's been tons and tons of research done that. That's the hardest thing, that's almost the worst thing you can do to a man is to disrespect him. And to disrespect them in public on top of it, that's humiliation. That's shame. Nobody likes to live in shame, and God doesn't want us to live in shame, so let's not do that.

Davenia: And you know, in the Bible, when it talks about it, it says for the husbands to love us, but it tells us to respect them. And that's. That's huge for a man. And so even if you don't agree, even if, you know, I always think of the story of Abigail in the Bible, and I'm like, abigail was married to a fool. Like, literally, that's a fool. Right? But. And it. And it said. And everybody knew that he was a fool, but she. It didn't say. She agreed with everybody. She also stood at the gates like this fool of a husband of mine. And even when their family was threatened to the point of death, she didn't go to David and say, hey, I don't have anything to do with him, and can you just save me and my kids? Because that man is a fool. No, she went. She covered for him. She went and corrected the error and went to set it right for her and her entire family, including her fool of a husband.

Speaker D: That's a beautiful story. Because really, did he deserve that? No, he did not deserve that. Do I deserve the forgiveness that my husband has to give me? A lot. I mean, sometimes. No. A lot. A Real lot. Do I deserve it? Not really. Does. Not really. But. But. But really forgiveness, when we understand the kind of forgiveness that we've been given, how can we not, by God? How can we not? How can we hold those grudges? How can we hold that bitterness against each other when he doesn't hold us. Hold it against us? You know, as far as the east is from the west, you know, that's how he's forgotten our sins. And so who am I to hold on to hurt, to hold on to pain that's been sincerely repented of. And, you know, that's important, too. But if this is a two way street, if this is a marriage that is, that you're fighting for, both of you are fighting for, and that you're trying to get back on track, it takes several things. It takes brokenness, okay? You have got to be 100% completely broken before God, before there's ever hope of anything changing. You have to be broken. You have to be a bit hopeless, really, because where's our hope? We've. Where have we been placing our hope all this time? In our. In ourselves, in each other, anywhere else but God. God's the only place where that hope can come from. And so we have to be completely broken and completely hopeless to get on our faces before him and have him come in and heal us. We had to be healed. We had broken places in us that were broken from a long time before we ever met. We had broken places in us that we broken in each other, and all of that had to be healed. And God can do a lot of that. And an amazing counselor that we call Magic Mike also was instrumental for us.

Davenia: Okay, wait, so you. You told us the story of how you both came to Christ, right? But that was in 2000, right? Correct. Well, earlier you said it's just been in the last two and a half years where it seems have been good, and I am horrible most times at.

Speaker D: Math, but you got that, did you? You Want to know?

Davenia: 20 some year period. So you came to Christ and life wasn't perfect?

Speaker D: No, it wasn't, guys. It was not. It was good most of the time. It was pretty good most of the time. Well, let me tell you something kind of cool I came across. This goes directly to what you just said, Davina. I tore my apartment, my apartment, my office, from end to end this past week. And in the middle of doing it, I found a letter that I wrote to Greg on our 20th wedding anniversary. Which would have been in 2008. Right. Which is dead in the middle of this time period we're talking about. And I wrote to him about how beautiful our marriage was, what a wonderful man he is, how. What great care he's taken of me. The thing of it is, is that I believe I was not lying about any of that. I thought that all of that was true. Now, we also had these other issues over here that would crop up every once in a while. We would get. We were getting just these awful, you know, yelling at each other, screaming fights. Now, we were never the silent treatment type, but, I mean, what's the difference? It's all bad, right? And so we would. We would. I don't know. Our patterns of fighting changed over the years, but what happened was that I started fighting back verbally instead of just freezing up, which is what I always did before. And then. And then as soon as I could get my dig in, then it was my turn, right? I didn't, like, go head to head with them. I waited till I could get him in a really sneaky spot. And what. Yeah. And we fought terrible. We were just mean. And here's what. What the thing of it is. You can get hurt physically, you can get hurt with words. And whoever said, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. That is lie from the pit, you guys, because words stay, right? Think about, I mean, how many we can. You can right now think of something that somebody said to you a long time ago that was hurtful still right there, isn't it? We said so many hurtful things to each other. We really did. And so it was still this. It was a. It was more of a spiritual power struggle, if I can call it that. But there was just anger. There was anger in both of us. It was underlying current of anger. And that came to a head eventually. It came to a head.

Davenia: So it came to a head. And then Magic Mike therapy, Is that eventually Before.

Speaker D: Before. Before Magic Mike, I gotta tell you, is that Greg was done. He was done. He's like, we're not. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm done with this marriage. There's nothing you can do to change my mind. And, I mean, I left. I left. We were separated at that point. And I begged and I him. I begged and I pleaded. God, I begged. You know, I just. Oh, I. I just. The pain of that, I can't even. I can still feel it in me right now. I can feel it. But God brought him around just about the time when. Guess what happened with me. What? I was done. I'm like, okay, enough, enough. My. I said I'd fight till the death. I did. It's dead. I'm done. And so I came back in and I made him go. And this happened, you guys, this happened over about probably two and a half or three month period. So we're not talking about a years long separation or anything like that. But then what happened was Magic Mike, okay, we both were like, oh, really? Are we going to throw this away? And in the meantime, we have two kids, two grown kids, right? And we're. That we made some big mistakes during that time. And one of them was that we told our kids way too much of what was happening between us. And we never should have done that. If I could do that over, I would not do that. But. But it happened. And so they're impacted as well. And so, yeah, we get to, we get to counseling. And he and I, Greg and I have both seen Magic Mike individually before. So he knew us, he knew our issues, and we got a lot of shoes in our closet. But we'd fought our way through a lot of our, you know, old, old pain. And what was left was this marriage pain. And he told us two things. He said, are you ready to lay down your weapons? And of course, I'm like, what do you tell what? He's the one that's got the weapons, not me. He got a hammer over there. I've got nothing. Are you ready to lay down your weapons? And will you. And I already said this one. Will you assume the best of each other? Will you promise to assume the best of each other first? Okay, I could talk for three more hours about what changed our marriage. Those two things changed our marriage. God used those two things to redeem our marriage. Because when we laid the weapons down, that left room for God to heal, to restore, to bring in the beautiful things that are. That are supposed to be in a marriage, that marriage is meant to be. God has a lovely plan for marriage. Most of us just don't ever get it. We don't ever figure it out because we're too busy with all of this other stuff, you know, fighting for ourselves or even for our kids, whatever. Our focus is in the wrong place. And a beautiful marriage is rare, you guys. And I did not know that what my husband and I have now existed. I didn't. And that sounds corny. Corny. Corny. I don't care. If he was here, he'd tell you the same thing. We, we are, we are happier. We have more fun. We laugh, we cry, we seek the Lord All. All the things that I longed for in a marriage are happening. Is he perfect? Nope. He's a human. Do we still fuss at each other? Yeah, sometimes. Does it ever. It has never again looked like it did before we separated. Never again.

Annie: You said one of the important. One of the two things is assume the best of each other. Was that right?

Speaker D: Yeah.

Annie: Okay, so let's say someone's in a relationship and the other person is, you know, kind of snippy at them when every time. Every time they come home from work, they're very tired, where they sniff at each other. So how do you. Okay, well, I'm going to start today assuming that. How do you assume the best of somebody that.

Speaker D: You know, I. Okay, here was. Here's what I would say to that. You have to assume the best in that you have to understand why they're doing that and not assume it's about you. Okay. It's coming out at you. Right. That's part's not. Okay. I'm not saying it is, but unless there's a reason to take it personally, it might be more about their day, or it might be about the traffic on the way home, or it might be about whatever. Now, does that mean they get to just talk nasty to you? No. But does it mean you might be more likely to go, hey, wow, you're. You know, you seem like you're really disgruntled. What happened? Did something happen at work today? Than to say, are you talking to me like that again? Are you kidding me? You see the difference? It's a different. It's a different headspace.

Annie: I definitely see the difference.

Davenia: Annie, it's back to chapter one. We can only. You can only work on your. You can only change you. Right. And the prayer is that as a result of. As we're changing and as God is working on us, then God begins to work on them. The other our spouse and. And then our marriage. And so I think what I heard you say, Angie, was sometimes it took you. Like when you said, it's choosing, it's laying down your weapon. Right? So you had to lay down getting those jabs in defending your position, the nagging. You had to lay it down, which then means sometimes now I have to bite my tongue and just be quiet. That didn't say that whatever you were responding to was.

Speaker D: It's.

Davenia: It's not saying that Greg was right in whatever he was doing or in whatever he said, but it's saying you. You're choosing to react to it in.

Speaker D: A different way, in a different Way. That's right. And, you know, I. This is kind of interesting. I reread the Love chapter of First Corinthians 13 today because I, I asked my husband the stuff earlier this afternoon, is there any passages that come to mind, you know, for us? And, you know, and that's the one that gets read so often at weddings, and I kind of rail against that, whatever. But so I got it out and looked at it, though, and it's a list of what love is and what love isn't. And so when I. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is the weapons that need to be laid down. But you know what? This is what we pick up in their place, right? Patience, kindness. We lay down the jealousy. We lay down the boasting. We lay down the pride. We lay down the rudeness. We stop demanding our own way. We stop being irritable. We don't keep a record of wrongs. We rejoice when the truth wins. We rejoice with them when they win. We never give up. We never lose faith. We're always hopeful and we endure to the end. I mean, you could. It's kind of like that. What's that story about how you can sweep out, you know, get the, get everything. Sweep everything out, but if you don't put something else back in, there's going to be more that come back. Okay. So we can't just get rid of the. The weapons. We got to put in, the tools that are going to rebuild. And, and some of them, Some of those tools I didn't know how to use, to be perfectly honest. So don't, so don't. You know what? Everybody starts somewhere, and we got. We got a lot of stuff wrong, but what's happened is this has been an unfolding for us that's just been like. It's just been the coolest ride. And so to come on here today, you guys get to talk about. It has been a real privilege that I was. I was nervous to do because it's, you know, this was the hardest time of our lives, but also the most important because what do we have to show for it is a marriage that not very many people get. And shouldn't. Shouldn't we show that when we have the chance? Now I love that I got to do that. I don't want to give any kind of an impression that I think there's a Cinderella, happy fairy tale ending out there for everybody in every circumstance. My first one wasn't. It was. It was. There was no fairy tale elements in there so please, if you're in a difficult situation, please, please, please don't think that I'm trying to gloss over any of that, because I'm not. I'm not.

Davenia: We appreciate you sharing, and there's so many good nuggets in there.

Annie: Yeah, I. You know, I want to thank you so much, Angie, for being our guest today and for being so vulnerable to share, I do believe. Well, I know two people, at least, who have benefited from your sharing.

Speaker D: Right.

Annie: Divinia. That'd be Divinia and Annie, for sure. And let's see, I've been married 25 years. Divinia. How many years?

Davenia: It'll be 30 in December.

Annie: So if I did the. Speaking of math. If I do the math, she's 35, I'm 25. So I've got eight more years before mine becomes good. Oh, no, no.

Speaker D: There you go. There you go. That's right.

Annie: If I do your favorite girl. But I just want to ask you, like, just Maybe one or two more questions. You mentioned a scripture, First Corinthians 13, the love chapter, if you will. That was wonderful. So is there a song that you. That you can say has been. I don't know, just a point of. Of hope or strength or encouragement somewhere along in your marriage or your relationship?

Speaker D: The song, you guys, it's called Sweet Symphony. Beautiful. Beautiful. Perfect song for us. So if you get a chance to listen to it, think of us.

Annie: Thank you. That was. That was. That was a great time. We're going to definitely listen to that. So, listeners, from our heart to yours, this song's for you.