In December we launched a new resource at RefineUs called MentorUs.

MentorUs is a monthly subscription program designed to help couples be intentional in their pursuit of God and their pursuit of their spouse. Each Friday we send an email with a marriage principle, a few Scriptures to read and four or five discussion questions to talk through. Then, once per month, we send a video recapping the entire month with more practical application.

For the month of December we allowed people register for $10 per month or pay for an entire year for $59. We had a tremendous response. In January, the yearly subscription price went to $79. As we have gotten feedback on MentorUs and heard such encouraging stories over the past month, we wanted even more couples to benefit from this weekly marriage resource.

Then we realized this month is February, the month of love! This month has 29 days in it and it’s Leap Year. This is also an election year. Those things have nothing to do with one another, but they are all great excuses to drop the yearly subscription price for MentorUs to $59! That is $.16 per day. That is $1.12 per week!

If you don’t want to commit to an entire year, then you can click here to pay $10 for a month. You can cancel at any time.

But if you want to save BIG time and get a marriage resource emailed to you each week. Then you can register below.

P.S. This resource should not be a substitute for roses, chocolate or a nice dinner for Valentine’s Day. That marriage advice was free.

We’ve had several people send us this video.

This is Jeff Bethke. His spoken word videos have blown up on YouTube. He makes some statements in this video that are so powerful and so thought provoking:

• Marriage will make you better or bitter
• What we’re doing isn’t working, just look at the rate of our divorces
• Marriage is prison more than the paradise we were promised
• Dating feels like a vacation, while marriage feels like a job
• We might share a checkbook and a house, but are we actually friends
• It’s not love that sustains the promise, but the promise that sustains the love
• We don’t fall out of love as much as we fall out of repentance

A place where marriages are not just happy but holy….that is our dream for RefineUs.

What are your thoughts on the video?

This week at Leading and Loving It we’ve had the awesome opportunity to hear from some amazing women at the JustONE Virtual Conference about expectations we as pastors wives place on ourselves. Not only did I learn a lot, I felt challenged to ask myself several hard questions. But one question in particular kept coming to mind:

What expectations do I place on myself?

The crazy thing is the more I thought about this question the more I kept thinking of my husband, Justin. Holly Furtick spoke on “not ridding your husbands spiritual coattails” so maybe that’s why Justin keeps coming to mind. This conference after all is about me… right? So why do I keep coming back to him? But that’s just it; my first thought was of Justin because often times I expect things from him in ways God never designed him to give. This is the gray area of being led spiritually by our husbands and not living vicariously through them.

I’m writing at Leading and Loving It today. Click here to read the rest of the post:

In 1998 Trisha and I moved from Saint Charles, Illinois to Kokomo, Indiana. This move, in my mind would be the move that made everything better. Our son Micah was two years old, Trisha was pregnant with Elijah, and our marriage of three years wasn’t going how either of us envisioned it would go. This move was going to be special because we were going to be moving from a $800 per month, 800 sq. ft apartment to a $525 per month, 1200 sq. ft house that we were buying! We were buying our first house.

In my mind, this would solve everything. Our house had a yard, it had neighbors, it had privacy, it had sidewalks, it had space. We were going to own it. I was convinced that this house would fix Trish. This house would solve our problems; this would would reduce the frequency of our arguments. This house would cover all of the things we disagreed about.

I soon came to realize that our first house didn’t fix it.

The truth is that we can never expect an external thing to fix internal problems. That just won’t happen.

So often when people are having marriage problems, they have this belief that if we just had this or if we just accomplished that or if we just got this or just moved there, then the problems in our relationship will go away or be solved. Our marriage will be better when:

• I get that promotion
• We get out of debt
• We move to a bigger house
• I finish my degree
• We make more money
• We move closer to “home”
• We have a baby

Babies are great. But a baby won’t fix it. A baby won’t fix the distance you feel. A baby won’t restore trust when trust has been broken. A baby won’t help you be more honest with each other. A baby won’t bring you closer spiritually. A baby won’t help you forgive. A baby won’t cause him to pursue you more. A baby won’t fix it.

We can’t count on something external, whatever that something is, to fix an internal problem.

There are two things that will fix what is wrong with your marriage.

• Pursuing God
• Pursuing your spouse

When you do those two things, you allow what is broken in your heart, in your relationship, in your soul to begin to find healing. You begin to move closer to God and closer to your spouse and in that process you begin to address the issues that you have rather than counting on a new house or a job promotion to cover those issues up.

A baby won’t fix it. But your pursuit of God and your spouse can.

Our blog was started a few weeks after we shared our story for the very first time publicly. We did a blog series with the hopes of sharing our journey from brokenness to restoration. We titled the series 8 Things that Destroyed Our Marriage.

In the ebook we candidly talk about the eight most crucial mistakes we made in our first 10 years of marriage. They were:

1. We Rarely Prayed Together

2. We Gave Each Other Left-overs

3. We Lived in the Same House, But Were Not on the Same Team.

4. We Failed to Dream Big Dreams for Our Marriage.

5. We Had Misguided Motives When We Argued.

6.  We Failed to Forgive…Truly Forgive.

7. We Forgot to Focus on Why We Fell in Love.

8. We Thought Withholding Truth Would Save Us from Needless Pain.

Over the past three years, this blog series has been the most viewed series of posts on our site. In our e-book we have taken the blog series and added Scripture to each mistake that will hopefully be a resource for you in your marriage relationship. Special thanks to our friend Ali Newton for designing our ebook for us.

We share our mistakes with you in hopes of helping you avoid them or recover from them. We hope you enjoy this free resource.

Our story would lend one to think that I have a right to live in constant fear that Justin will have another affair.

Or that Justin should fear that one day I would eventually leave him because of his choices.

This type of fearful thinking is so destructive. There is no doubt that trust had to be re-earned…but at some point for our relationship to move forward, trust had to overtake fear.

Fear says that you will not survive the fall out of losing your spouse so live in suspicion so that you can catch him/her when she messes-up.

Fear robs. Fear steals. Fear destroys. Fear causes us to control; to manipulate; to be suspecious.

Trust says…

I am fully aware that in trusting I’m being vulnerable to being hurt (again).

Trust says…

“I am for you” and “I am thinking the best of you”… not the worst.

Trust says…

I’m gong to love my spouse with reckless abandonment just as Jesus did for me when he died on the cross.

Trust says…

I will love my spouse without fear but with hope that the Holy Spirit will guide me as to how to love my spouse.

Trust says…

“God I will love my spouse fearlessly thinking the best of them at all times” and “if my spouse fails me YOU will never leave me or forsake me.”

Maybe you’re trying to accomplish through fear what can only be accomplished through trust.

Maybe the distance between the marriage you have and the marriage you truly desire is found in the difference in you being fearful or you trusting.

I’ve (Trisha) been trying to write this post for the past week. When I try to write, my thoughts are so deep and heavy I’m afraid to put words to them. I’m searching for words to make my thoughts feel lighter and safe but I can’t. Instead I’m going for honest and raw and praying somehow Jesus will land them softly into your heart. I pray you will read the entire post knowing my words will get lighter.

I had no desire to go back into ministry after leaving our church plant in 2005. Like never. Ever! My husband Justin was making great money as an executive recruiter. I was a happy stay-at-home mom getting to finish my college degree. It had been four years of rest and restoration for our marriage and our family. I didn’t need to go back into ministry to feel my restoration was complete. I was content, happy and safe.

I’m writing today for ChurchPlanters.com. Read the rest of the this post by clicking HERE:  

For years Trisha and I had the same belief about one another that became a self-fulfilling prophesy and left both of us frustrated and defeated. My guess is that there are so many people that struggle with this same feeling every single day.

You say it under your breath. You scream it as you slam a door. You say it as you throw up your hands and walk away. This feeling makes its way to the surface in arguments. It creates a sense of resignation. It makes you feel like you fight about the same thing over and over and over again.

Here is the feeling that most husbands and wives live with every single day: No matter what I do, it is never good enough.

Ever felt that way?

-No matter how much money I make she’s never satisfied.

-No matter how nice our house is, its not big enough.

-No matter how often we have sex, its never often enough.

-No matter what I wear, it’s not good enough.

-No matter what chores I do, I never do them good enough.

-No matter what I make for dinner, it just not enough.

-No matter how much I give, I don’t give enough.

-No matter how much I listen, I never listen enough.

It is amazing how two people can live in the same house, commit their lives to one another and always feel inadequate. When what you give always comes up short, why give so much?

Maybe the feelings of defeat you feel are the same feelings your spouse is feeling. This weekend could be a turning point. You could go out this weekend and instead of complaining about all that your spouse isn’t, share with them all that they are. That could be a game changer…for you and for them.

Have a great weekend.

Last night I was doing some reading and writing our weekly MentorUs resource and I came across this verse. It isn’t new, but it hit my heart in a brand new way:

Ephesians 5:21: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

That word submit gets a bad rap sometimes. We say it in our wedding and then resent it in our marriage. But the word submit simply means “to put someone else ahead of yourself.”

Your preference is more important than my preference.

Your desires more important than my desires.

Your wishes more important than my wishes.

You being right more important than me being right.

You are more important than me…that is submission.

God’s desire is that both people in a marriage make the other person more important than themselves.

Over the last week we’ve had several people email us or talk to us personally about pornography. How did I stop watching it? Do I have a desire to watch it? Am I still addicted to it? How did we overcome it?

What I’ve realized is what kept me in bondage to a sexual addiction wasn’t porn, it was pride. It was a lack of submission. My pride wouldn’t allow me to admit my problem. My pride wouldn’t allow me to seek help. My pride was more important than submitting to Christ or to my wife. My pride was bigger than my porn problem. My pride kept my porn problem big.

Pride is a cancer that will eat us alive.

What we have realized is that pride is the cause of so many issues. We meet with couples who are struggling in their marriage; Trisha talks to a friend that has been hurt by a friend…what it usually goes back to is pride.

Pride…

-It’s why you’re not satisfied with the house you live in

-It’s why you feel entitled to that job or that promotion

-It’s why you won’t say you’re sorry

-It’s why you talk to your wife like she’s a dog

-It’s why you pretend to be closer to God than you really are

-It’s why you spend money you don’t have to impress people you don’t even like

-It’s why you won’t forgive

-It’s why you don’t respect your husband

-It’s why you refuse to admit you’re wrong

Pride is probably our greatest hurdle to become the man or the woman that God created us to be. It is pride that is preventing you from asking for help. Pride longs to rob you, to cheat you, to convince you that life is best lived looking out for you.

It is a cancer that will one day take over your heart. The great news today is that pride’s defeat begins by recognizing its presence.

What area of your life is pride holding you hostage? 

Justin and I love listening to couples that enjoy talking about their spouse and their marriage relationship. We often will ask them questions to get to the core of why their marriage seems to be on the right track (not perfect but on the right track). It doesn’t matter if your married or single we would love from you too!

What are the top three characteristics that you feel make a great marriage?