SPEAKER_01 0:00

Here comes a sun do. Here comes a sun da say it's all right.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

Well, hello, Fortitude Audience. I am Amos, and I'm here with my wife, Heather. Hello. And today you guys get a little bit of a sneak peek into what's some things that are very personal to us. Isn't that right? We are gonna dive into some recent struggles that we've gone through and navigated and by the grace of God gotten through. 30 seconds, I'm already getting emotional. And um we hope that you get to take away uh, you know, uh growth opportunities from just learning what we've gone through. And this is why we're here. This is we're here, we're here to uh be vulnerable and to help culpables understand that they're not alone and people to understand that their struggles are not unique, that uh you can get through things with grace and love. And your Heavenly Father is there to walk with you every step of the way. And he this is I mean, this is no exemption. This is one where God has definitely been in our lives since we've been married, before we even married. And it's so hard to see it when we're in that journey. But now that we're past this season in our lives, it's we look back and go, eh, I can see God's anywhere call over that. Isn't that right?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah. And the reason that we're the reason I was like I said to Amos, I was like, I really want like I'm in it. We're in it. We're currently like a week over a hump. And I was like, I want to share it. Let's let's get on and let's share it. I don't think I just want to.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

I want like airing on our dirty laundry.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Why not?

SPEAKER_03 2:03

To the public. Well, what the heck?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

We started I started doing that about what, three, four years ago when I jumped on that first stage and shared my shared our story and so true. Haven't stopped since.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

So true. And it's how healing has that been, just being open.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Very yeah. How's what has that done to shame inside your heart?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Well, I would every single time I've shared it, each time it gets a little bit easier, but it's never, it's never full on shame is all gone. I have to pray about that all the time. Because there's still things that will come up, or the more open I am about it, um, I guess there's things I forget. There's things I forgot. And some other people have not.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Is it true that each time you tell it, it's a little bit more healing? And the fact that you part of your story is that you were you were handcuffed with shame because you're hiding because you're in guilt, because you were hiding so much. And now being open and vulnerable and sharing, it's healing.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

It's healing also knowing that by sharing my story, there's others who are they get that that tug to share themselves. I get messages and lots of uh random phone numbers I don't know that come to my text. So they're finding my phone number some way, somehow, or to instant message and they're just saying, um, hey, I I actually just got one two days ago that I haven't showed you yet. Yeah. It was a long instant message from someone who said, I heard you at CultureCon in 2022 and I was in the audience and your story resonated with resonated.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Res there you go.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

There it is, resonated with me and just poured his heart out. And it's it's just good to know that the more vulnerable we are, it gives other people permission also to find freedom in their stories. Yeah. So that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

So what's on your mind? What do you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Well, one thing is multiple people have told me that listen to our podcast pretty regularly. Our audience has said, I want to hear more from just you and Amos too. Like we love the stories, we love all your guests, every everything is great. But we'd love to hear more about the two of you because of your banters are funny and all the different things. So, as funny as we don't think we are, other people do. It's all my deck jokes. It's definitely not your jokes. So what I wanted to start with is parenting and marriage, right? There's there's a lot of different things that we go through. We are told that we're gonna have this find your, find your one, fall in love, get married, have kids, get a job, and you will have your happily ever after. But that is the worldly way of viewing things because it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of uncomfortableness, a lot of um looking in the mirror and realizing that for me personally, there's oh man. In this whole journey that we've gone through, I had a profession. I'm and I would like to say that I worked really, really hard. And we've discussed this in other circumstances about how professionally I was growing like crazy through even through the drinking and all the things. Like I was still growing, and that was kind of where my focus was. And home, I was okay with just kind of survival. Everything was survival. I wasn't, I actually wasn't okay with it, but it was working. And you were kind of holding the family together. And so now here I am resigning from my full-time career that I'm really good at. At least I thought so. And relationship management and people and networking and connecting, and I just thrive and my cup gets full from people. And then I, you and I decide that I needed to move on from the situation that I was in and really start pressing into being a stay-at-home mom.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

And our part of that part of what did that, what helped us is because our incomes were were relatively equal, and we were still paying for daycare on a daily basis and after school care. And our youngest got to the point where she could go to school, she would all day school. Yep. And then so that was just a huge relief on the daycare cost requirements. After school care. When she got to five, so we I mean, we worked through that for nine years of daycare. And it was once we were lifted of that financial burden, the equation that just the the the thinking about it got a lot easier. But also things got really hard at the office, too.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

So there was just like the shift over to and you were really good with money. I was when we first started our marriage, Amos would do things that would literally give me a heart attack. And I was full commission at a job at a job. And he, I would, I had credit cards. Um, I didn't have a lot of education on the financial side of things growing up. And so, you know, I we we were paying literally for free t-shirts that I was getting at college to sign up for credit cards still in our marriage.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

You brought about $55,000 in debt, and I brought about 20,000 in debt to the table.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Right. Yeah. And so you were just like, hey, you got a great commission check. Let's pay off that $4,000 credit card. Let's just do it. And I was like, I was so, I remember I would sweat, physically sweat. I was so nervous about that. Cause I was like, well, what if we need it? Like, let's what if we, you know? So we would do it. And just every we, we just cut, we cut debt, cut debt. We kept doing that. And so financially, I have, I mean, you, you really drove us into a place, a really good place, gently and yet harshly, like in not a not a controlling way, but uh, we're we can do this. We're gonna do this.

SPEAKER_03 8:36

Yeah, I stood my ground.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

And to your credits, you said, okay. Yeah, and I'm grateful for that because here we are, 10 years later, and we have gotten our out of debt and except for our house. Savings. Yeah, and we could do what we did. And we've gotten a lot of uh, I've gotten some ridicule from people in my life, and I've heard from third party people that have said, uh, yeah, there are people in your life that don't agree with what you did. And I don't care. I don't care. Because the here's the thing when you're married and you know where you're at financially, no one else does. I mean, granted, we're kind of airing it out here on a podcast to the world, but people did people don't get to have an opinion with what we're doing behind our four walls. If it's good, it's honest, and it's for our family and for our marriage because we have to live together. We have to do things together.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

It's amazing how people think have an opinion on what's best for our lives. And they're not a part of our lives, they're not in our family, but they have the strong opinion on how we should do things, especially broke people.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Yeah, especially on how we should be doing things.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

How are you gonna do that? Don't you have you have bills to pay? Like people are in the worldly way of thinking too, where we know that we've done our, we know where we are with Christ, we know where we are with our marriage, we know we're working on things. And so we have the eternal perspective that God has never let us down. As long as we're doing the work and we have taken care of us and our family and we keep our focus on that, we're gonna be okay. God will always, always provide. He has never not provided since we have been married.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Right. So And to be fair, for the for the benefit of our audience, I think it's safe to say that uh our friends are very supportive. Yes. What we're finding is family, it can be opinionated on, you know, on both sides, right? And that gets a little personal, and that requires us to spend more time and more effort on those healthy boundaries and not let those negative opinions and feelings into our marriage. Right. Like we can't do, we just can't they how do I say this? They want to insert their opinion. We get to say, no, we are a family. You yes, we are related to you, but this is our family unit. No one gets to come in and say what happens in our family. Yeah. No one gets to just insert their opinion. Yeah. We can invite an opinion, we can ask for opinions, but if you are just come and insert yourself, that's crossing a healthy line.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

And that is a that's a whole episode in itself. Because I've had a lot of my friends and acquaintances or just people I actually people I don't even know who have said that a husband or a wife in the marriage relies so much on input from family, from sisters, brothers, parents, whatever it is. And their opinion actually matters more than their spouse. And that is flopped. That is actually not biblical at all. And um it's okay to ask for advice. It's okay to ask. But people, like what's the thing that we learned about you pick five people, or like I pick five people, you pick five people. And those people, when I, when you and I are in an even like two, where if I go to that person and say, This is going on in my marriage and I'm really frustrated, they actually should have your back. They should be, they should speak to me as you know that that is not the truth. Amos loves you. Amos will never do anything.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Your friends have my back. My friends have your back.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Yes. You pick the people that will not commiserate with you. You pick the people when you need to speak to someone that knows you both and sticks up for your spouse in a in a positive way, just speaking truth. It's it's simply just speaking truth.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

And who are like, oh yeah, you're right. Right. Right. Amos, oh, how rude. Amos, you know, like there's it a healthy, healthy friendship is one where they will speak truth into your life and not sit and bash, be a husband or wife basher. Yeah, that's wise. I know. That's so wise.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

I'm grateful for that.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

So I have a couple of those. And thank you. If you're listening, you know who you are.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Yes. Thank you to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Yeah. So um the the so the big piece of this is for the moms who are stay-at-home moms, man, I cannot say enough how much I respect and adore these women and these husbands who fully stay home and invest in their families and their children. And those who are on the other side of it and like you working super, super hard to provide for the family so that the family is priority. Also, thank you. It is not easy. I have just walked through um where, yeah, I didn't like it. And I I was so excited. I'm like, I'm gonna be go home and I'm gonna love all my kids. We're gonna have so much fun this summer. And I was like, these kids have no appreciation. They're a bunch of little devils. There's no, there's no like into this. They need snacks, they need drinks, they need food, the floor, the cleanup, the laundry, the I mean, I could go on and on and on where I'm like, get me back to work.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

So you're referring to the start of the summertime. The kids are just about to finish up school last year. And at the same time, you were on your way out of your full-time job. And so what was it? Was like right at was it right at the summer that you were was it before or after school that that you would was your last day at work?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Well, we went to Germany at the end of May, right? While the kids all were done, and then my very last day was June 2nd. So like we hit the very beginning of summer, just we were all in, so excited. The kids were just like, this is gonna be so awesome.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

And no daycare, so canceled daycare. So you wake up in the morning, you're not having to get ready, and the kids are there all day.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

All day, every day. And not only that, but I've all four of them. All four of them. And which is teenage all the way down to uh kindergarten. And I think this is it's just gonna be the greatest thing. And it and it was for the first couple weeks. Maybe that's even ext that might even be pushing it, might be like the first couple days. But it's it's this again going back to you hear it, you hear people say it's really, it's a really hard thing. And I guess because I was so good and my profession that I thought I could just flop this and be like, okay, now I'm all in. And now I'm leading four little human beings. And the realization, um, so we had a great summer and it was it was really hard, but it was great. And and granted, I wasn't a stay-at-home mom. I like to look at it a little bit more like a mom preneur. I know that that term is is tossed around and it's a real thing. Like I'm operating as a full-time mom, but I still was doing speaking engagements, still doing events, still doing my passion projects that I was doing while I was also full-time working. So it kind of just shifted from got done with my full-time position, and now it's mom and side projects. And so that's considered mom preneur, I guess. And that was hard too, because there was a mental battle of I decided to be a stay-at-home mom, but I still have things I'm working on. And so there was this guilt that I went through. And I know a lot of moms deal with this. The guilt of they need me. I I should be completely focused in on these, on the on the kids, but I need to be working on this talk that's coming up on Saturday. So trying to balance that full-time mom, but working, it that is a battlefield all in itself. Like it, that is an it's it's really, really hard.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

For me, it's so stressful.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

It's really hard to switch that context back and forth in your your mind. It's taxing, it takes energy, and it's hard to get back in the groove after you've switched context.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

And it's not fair to the kids. I mean, granted, there's good boundaries, and you have taught me so much about boundaries, but there's also the the shushing away or pushing away, or because you haven't fully communicated to them that you need the space, or there's time blocking, or excuse me.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Yeah, if there's if there's not ha if there hasn't been a structure there and some expectations to the kids, or or expectations clearly communicated to the to the kids. Right. And they act impulsively. They're very prone to just acting impulsely, impulsively, and get what they want when they act on those impulses, that's a stressful thing. Because then you've got to deal with that in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yep. And then I would find myself turning into the old, the old Heather. And I've worked, when I say the old Heather, it's the quick abrasive, like, stop that. Put that down. Leave, you know, like, and it's not even I can't, I yeah, we all yell. So I'm not gonna say I don't yell. But I would raise my voice in a tone that actually shuts them down. And I don't want that. I wanna be, I wanna be remembered as a loving, caring, nurturing mom who was always there to listen, to love, to hug. And I wasn't that such.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

You know, we are our worst our own worst critics. And I'm sure that that's not how I remember it.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

I mean it's there's there's a there's a healthy sense of when I get better. But I think I think you can release yourself from that guilt.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Which I am. Because it's getting better.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

So it's still hard, I know. It's it's like it's raw and then we we love our kids. And so it's yeah, I go through the same kind of regrets where I've lost my temper, or I've yelled, or I haven't had haven't handled a situation I've reacted and not responded. I've got those same kind of guilt.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

And I don't know that that goes away because we always have those moments, right? But my battle this summer and then into fall was of course, the devil is always after us. And the more you pursue Christ and the more that you dig into the word and start operating in a godly fashion every day. When your eyes are focused on an eternal living and Christ's like living, the devil is going to attack. It is biblical, it is known, it is true, it is tested, it is like it's and so when you're under attack, to actually rejoice in that is hard. Cause that was what was Oh, yay, I'm under attack. This is great. Yay! My mind has tells me I'm worthless and that I suck as a mom and that I suck as a wife, and all these thoughts come racing in, and to fight that off is really hard, especially when the devil's going, well, yeah, you do kind of suck at this. And so just go back full time. Just go go do what you're really good at because you know you are, and then job offers will come in, or people will say, Hey, this, this, this is happening, and I think you'd be really great at this position. And then I find myself like drawn over here, going, yeah, actually, you know what, this would be easier. And yet, in the talks that I do for other women, I speak directly to stepping out of your comfort zone and getting uncomfortable. And when people ask me out on the streets, like, hey, how's this going with you being a stay at home mom? I'm like, I wanna, I wanna look and be like, it's awful. Like it's awful, but it's not. It's not, it's beautiful. It's amazing because I get to spend I get to spend every day with these beautiful little humans that came out of my body that we made and they are such a true gift from God. And so instead I have changed my verbiage to be less abrasive and just say it's beautifully uncomfortable. And that's where I've been. It's been a um my biggest realization that just happened was in fighting this, and I haven't really communicated it with, or I hadn't been communicating it with you. Right? Like I just, I was quiet and I was sad. And yet I was kind of just going through the motions, just trying to figure it out. And then about two weeks ago, I was like, okay, I have to get myself out of this because not only for the my safety, for um where the devil could pull me really quickly if I get back into a sad weak moment.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Yeah, just staying in recovery. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yeah. I'm like, I have to get out of this. So how and so I reached out to a couple friends of mine and just said, here's where I'm at. Like, what is going on? Um, and so just talking through that with someone else was really important.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Cause I was trying to figure it out. I was just trying to do it because I'm like, I'm I'm someone who's helping other people. Why can't I even help myself through this?

SPEAKER_03 23:42

Can we roll back just a couple of weeks to that point, right before that? Because I and you can tell me if I'm wrong in this, because it I had started, I had listened to some resources and talked to some mentors about um uh biblical leadership and what a household looks like from a biblical point of view. I'm talking and speaking to Ephesians 5.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

And um what the division of responsibilities and just parenting can look like in a in a house. And we sat down and talked a little bit about this. I'd said, I got some, I've got clarity on this, things are gonna change around here a little bit. I'm gonna take more responsibility for what I've done. I've been realizing that I've not been doing what I truly believe is right in order to keep the peace. And I'm gonna take full responsibility for that and we're gonna kind of do some of these things. And I didn't really tell you all the things because I didn't think they were appropriate at the time, and I just needed you to kind of go along with it, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

And which I'm not really a person that likes to just go along with things.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

A big part of that of that leadership is compassion, but also sticking, staying true to what you truly believe is right. And I was getting clarity in the moment about some things that were unhealthy in our in our relationship and our kids' relationship. I realized that they weren't taking things like no means no. They were taking it as a suggestion, and that was causing all kinds of frustration. They were doing things like running over to the neighbor's house when we said no, and then we had a hard time getting them back, and then there were some healthy boundaries, unhealthy boundaries there. And so I just, I just all these pieces of the puzzle kind of clicked into place, and I said, okay, like go. Like, we need to fix this. And I need to do this with compassion and grace and not arm twisting. And I did. In the meantime, you were kind of at your low point, and then I think you had an allergic, like an allergic reaction to what happened, right? Like you didn't like it.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Give me Benadryl.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

You didn't get it you didn't, you didn't you didn't get it. I there was no way I could really communicate it to you. If I had, it would have been probably wouldn't have been received in a way that was I'm not sure. I how I communicate it is my responsibility. And I'm not sure I could have done a good job. I'm not sure I could have done a good enough job. There I don't think there was a words that could have solved this, right? Got us through that. And so it took you over even lower. And you and I started to drift apart.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

And I is that where is that where you're getting to the point where you start to reach out to people and say, I need to get this, I need to get this fixed.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Yeah. Yeah. Cause the 50-50. So let's go there for a second, because in um I I this when it comes to sorry super easy conversation.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

When it comes to our marriage and the financial piece, and like in the very beginning of our marriage, Amos being an entrepreneur, I would bring home the paycheck, and Amos would not. And I would say, I trust you. I know like you're of he's so wise and he's determined and he's consistent. And like the fact that you weren't bringing home a paycheck, it didn't necessarily worry me. But I but it it made me feel more dumb. Like, I don't know why in coup couples, like it's Christ, it's your marriage, and it's your family. It doesn't matter who's bringing in what, it doesn't matter who's doing what. It is biblical that it is Christ first, your marriage, and then your family. And however the money comes in or whoever has what position, it does not make one person more than the other. The reality is I had stepped into more of a control and and not allowed you to be the head of the household. I didn't really know what that looked like because I didn't necessarily have um examples in my life. I didn't have a template.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

In fact, you had templates for quite the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

So I have a really I have a strong personality. I've been told I'm for people and I'm not for others, and I'm okay with that. When it comes to our marriage, to be the word submissive is actually a it comes from military and talks about leader, and it talks about you can't have two leaders of a of a of an army. You can't. You can't have two. Same as the household. And so um, when you would come when you would come to me and try to communicate different things that weren't working, or maybe I needed to do this, this, or this, I'm like, whatever. Don't tell me what to do before. And now it's uh, I look to you as the leader of the household, and that has taken a lot of time and a lot of work and a lot of internal um trust trust. Like I've had to look at you and in these last couple months and been like, I don't get it, and I don't like it. Like I don't like it. And it actually really makes it, it's like when you're really good at your role in the out in out in the world, and then you come into your home and you're like, trust me, things gotta change, but I promise you it's gonna be for the better. But it's a long-term thing versus an immediate. And when you start to see the fruits of your labor, which is where I think that I'm at now, it it makes me go, honey, thank you so much for never giving up. Thank you for sticking to your guns. Thank you for being consistent and constant in our family, because I could have bulldozed over you so fast.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Oh, you think so, huh?

SPEAKER_00 30:01

I see it in so many other marriages where the man shuts the woman down or the woman shuts the man down, and it just becomes a control factor and it becomes so unhealthy and really damaging. And instead of me fighting you, because I feel like that's what I did for so many years. I fought you and I fought you, especially because this the parenting piece of it for you and I, that's where it's we're off.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

Yeah, I have been for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

And and I think specifically what we're off on the most is that you're an in-the-moment thinker. Yes. And you respond and sometimes react to very uh to the moment in in like 10 minute time slots, right? I just need to get through this 10 this next 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Because I'd I I'd only know in survival.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Only known it.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

For survival. And I'm much more of a long-term thinker, like I'm willing to go through pain for the next 10 minutes or even the next 30 days if it sets up our kids up for if it sets our kids up for success, if it sets our marriage up for success. Like I'm willing, I'm willing to take those hits because I know the fruits that will come out of that. I I feel like that's been one of the biggest stressors in our relationship. I would often say to you, you know, this is hard. I know you're not liking this. You never like the process, but you like the results. I think I could do some improvement on how I used to say that. Take some ownership on that. But that was that was my point of view. Like, like you just, like you just said, you never liked the process. And you would, I would agree that you would fight back and drag your feet and on in a way in a way row backwards in the other direction. Because you didn't either I couldn't communicate it correctly or it wasn't being received, or maybe I just implemented something without it talking it through. And I think that happened often. Then that's after things would get through that season, there would be more peace in the house and less stress. And you always, you always did appreciate that, with which I'm grateful for.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

And I could have, and I did, uh a past response to that, a reaction, I could say, because I'm trying to get more proactive than reactive. But being proactive is what you do, and I've always been reactive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

And so cause a lot of stress between us, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

And I'm not one to fight, I'm one to shut down. And it again comes from it's a learned behavior. And silence is not the answer, ladies and gentlemen. Being silent is such uh it's such a slow killer to a marriage and to respect and to love and admiration and all the things that come from a marriage. It's like silence and not communicating. We can't read each other's minds. And so there's been so many times and like I don't get this, so I need to talk through it. So walk me through why, what you think, what the results are gonna be, how I can best be a value add in this versus kind of just almost like reversing everything that you're trying to do, which I which I think I was doing for quite some time, um, where you would say, like, let's not give them tons of snacks before we eat, or the boundaries of the kids for dinner. If they don't eat what you cook, they're not eating anything else. Because I was like, well, they don't like what I cook, so I'll give them something else, or they'll have a fruit or fruit before bed. I mean, there's so many things that took so much more time to eliminate or um even just implement because I was like, why do we why? I don't understand it. Well, it's because it's it's all our learned behavior. It's all the heart, it's all those words written in our heart or all those things that are written in our heart from how we were raised to how we operated in college, how we operated even in my first marriage. I have, I have tons of trauma still that we're dealing with today. Not tons. I shouldn't say tons. It's not like that.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

You're doing amazing.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

But it's working through my reaction and becoming more responsive, realizing that Amos does have my best interest in our family's best interest in mind all the time. Like we are your everything. And that's that's how it is for most marriages, but they just get lost in the communication and in the push and the pull and the button heads all the time.

SPEAKER_03 35:00

Can you take that another another step further?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Please. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

There is a psychological difference between a man and a woman, generally. And generally there are some things where you can categorize you can I don't know, I'm taking this to math. Like statistically, men do things. Of course you are. Women can do like you can just look at the graph and go, yep, there's a high women do this more and men do this more, right? That's just that's just how we're beat. We're wonderfully made by God. And then sometimes you have some crossover on on things. Um, but your nurturing nature, I think you you go to a nurturing nature. That's your default. I mean, that's how you were born to nurture them. So when they're hungry, you're like, beat them.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

But isn't that biblical? Like women are made, we're made as nurturers. It's not, you're not not just speaking to me, you're speaking to women.

SPEAKER_03 35:52

Right. Biblical. Right. Like you're my kids are hungry. I want to feed them.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

They got a boo-boo. You want to hold them, and you're like, get away from them because you're gonna make them cry.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

Well, this is how this is where you we get to come together as a team. Right. And I think we we worked through a lot of that in where um you had your opinion and your your way of doing things, and you're looking through their need through your lenses of a woman.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Yeah. Beautifully made. Right. There's not like there's nothing wrong with that. And I'm looking at through my lens of what's the word? It's not nurturer, as a leader and long-term and trying to keep the peace in the house. And so I had my view of how things should go, my lens, through my lens. And we'd often clash. So I say, um, you kids don't want to eat what you cook, they should respect, they should be, they should have more gratitude. Because gratitude is going to make um sitting down in a restaurant easier a year from now, you know? And um when they if they act impulsively, then that will make bedtime harder. So let's work on their self-control. So when they're hungry, let's just say no, so that they can work on their impulses, they can work on their self-control, they can be more gratitude, have more gratitude at dinner time. And these are all the things going through my head. You think a woman's head is crazy or a guy as a leader, these are all things think going through my head. And we would clash on those. And there was a severe lack, I mean, there was a lack of trust and understanding that we just have a different point of view on things. And yeah, you would say, Nope, I'm gonna feed him. And I'm going, so my role as a leader was then to have compassion and try to understand the situation and not force you into doing things. But and there were times I put my foot down and said, Nope, not gonna do it. That happened last night when you wanted to scratch the backs for bedtime and it's 9 30, and it's they're like an hour past bedtime, you know?

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Oh, and believe me, I was like, that's like their favorite time of the day, is when moms scratch scratch their back every single night. And so when they're misbehaving and that is a sorry, you don't you don't get to have your back scratched. It is it is like a death sentence for them. And it's hard for you. It's very hard for me. Right. I actually don't like you in that moment.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

And I'm willing to put up with that and take the heat. Yeah, because tomorrow I know that as a family, it will be easier and we'll be able to be able to show grace and love easier because they'll have learned a lesson. And so it's just like we're and if the audience can't have to pick this up, we're still working through this. We're still learning to be a team and how to trust each other. And and and even, you know, one of my biggest responsibilities is not to be such a hard line, like always hold that line. That's not showing compassion.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

And it's actually a turnoff for me.

SPEAKER_03 39:05

It's not a good leadership style. No to just mile way or the highway all the time, 100% of the time, consistency and under the guise of consistency. That's not love. And that's not compassion. Right. And that's that's a thing that I'm still working on. I think I've made lots of mistakes on that over the years. And what it one of the puzzle pieces I I had that clicked into place during the summertime was that compassion piece. I was missing the active consideration of compassion in those moments in leadership.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

And I can tell a big difference. Cool. There was a moment. Um I want to go back to something, but there was a mo the specific moment where we had just had multiple things happen of oh man, just story after story of a suicide or someone was diagnosed with cancer, or someone, someone's little kid um didn't survive something. And I was just hearing is right, it actually might have been done like a month ago. I was hearing all of that. And I was like, I remember I had a moment with you downstairs where I was like, Amos, I'm so tired of the 10 year, the long term. I'm like, because we don't know if we're gonna be here tomorrow. Like, can we just please just have fun? I want to have fun. Like, I we like we had a a moment of like, this is this is hard. This is very vulnerable, but it's like you're always thinking 10 years out. And it's like there is a beautiful balance of day by day, but still 10 years out. There is, and for me, um, I just want to soak up every moment of our kids and us. And I don't want regret.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

We were at the end of like a three-week stretch of me being super intentional about hey kids, no means no. And remember, you can't go do this, you can't just run to the neighbors just all by yourself. And it was uh it was it was a lot. Yeah. I put the family through a lot.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

It was tough.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

But the results, again, like you said, the the result here here's the other piece though, on that. If I would not have communicated that with you and expressed where my heart was, it could have lasted many more weeks. And it would have put a dagger in between you and I because I would start to resent you more and more and more and more. So I can't express enough how important it is for husbands and wives to to really, no matter how uncomfortable it is, to express your desires, express where your heart is, express what you're thinking. Um, because that is the only way that you we can work together. It's the only way that it's worked for us to come, like for me to say, I don't understand it, but I'm gonna back you up. And for you to say, I don't get it. I mean, I understand, but yet I don't understand. And I'm gonna work on that. I'm gonna work on doing it, having more compassion and on how I deliver the message or whatever. Because I would see the kids coming to me all the time and not you because dad's more more rules, more this, more that.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

Um that's hard, that's hard on you in your heart. It's very hard on your heart. I know it's hard on you.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Especially when you have that uh, you know, Jacob is not yours. So you entered into this relationship as an insta dad when Jacob was three, and your knowledge on parenting started without even having children. Like, this is what's really cool, y'all. Like, Amos, God kicked a learned spirit in Amos years and years before we had even met. And in preparation for what you were about to get.

SPEAKER_03 43:17

Amazing. Before we'd ever met.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Right, wrong, or inevitable.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Yeah. So in that, I I look at how you were living your life before we met versus how I was living before we met. And then going into our relationship with everything that we had. You know, again, debt baggage, whatever, you know, like there's no, I don't look at I don't like the word baggage because everything we have has been God given and has taught us. We look back and God's in absolute everything, and God doesn't have baggage.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

So it's like norms. We brought norms. You brought norms. From your family. I brought those from my family.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

Both played themselves out as reality in our marriage. And we got to getting to sort through those.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

So two weeks ago, in that in those moments, I was really like I was starting to fall into the comparison piece. So this is what I want to speak to some uh direct moms. The comparison piece is the devil. Absolutely. Because I was like, these other moms, they walk around with their kids with smiles on their faces, and they're like these sweet little ducklings, and they listen, they obey. And the mom actually is a stay-at-home mom because she was made for this. Like this, this is what she was made for. I am not made for this. This is not where I belong.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Are you saying, are you saying that about yourself? Oh, yeah. Or what you're feeling.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

Like I was, that's every like all the feelings. The comparison is what we do. Yeah. You hear this a lot in a lot of my friendship groups and women's groups and church, it doesn't matter. Our comparison in and not even it's of course it's in the worldly things, like in stuff and who has what and all that. But it's more of like, I'm not meant to be a stay-at-home mom. So to go back to what I was saying in the beginning, I wouldn't apply for this job. Honestly. It is very unappreciative. Like I have had to ask Brittany, my nine-year-old who gets it, like, sweetheart, I am asked what to do all day long. I have everything that happens around this house, mom is responsible for. And I need more thank yous. They they they're really good at their pleas and thank yous. We work, we've worked on that for a long time. But like hugs or out of nowhere, I just need you to come over and just touch me and just say, I really appreciate you, mom. Like if we don't do that, our soul gets sucked out of us. Like literally. Because it's not like I feel the most appreciated when they're sleeping. Because I was like, the day is done. And they're all alive and they're sleeping and they're clean, hopefully. But like it's it's a really hard job. It's one of the most unappreciated jobs ever. And so I'm so grateful that I have had a taste of it in this fashion. Because before I operated, and we'll close with this because right? We're almost out of time. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

We'll go as long as we need to.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Okay. I it's like a um Amos and I were sitting out in the backyard, and I'm not good at sitting down. I'm not good at uh I haven't in the past. Been good at ever just taking time. Because there's always something that needs to get done. But our soul and our body and our spirit needs to rest. And I'm not good at resting. And so in this process, people are like, you kind of flopped that whole stay-at-home mom thing. Like usually you stay home with your kids when they're little, and then when they go back to school, that's when you go get a job. So I flopped that, right?

SPEAKER_03 48:03

And I get to take responsibility for that because I wasn't providing for the family adequately.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

And um so I look at like we needed a dual income. And so yes, thank you for that. But I I look at how um because we were in survival mode for so long, because we were a dual working parent household, also I was starting to speak more. We started the podcast. We were at max capacity in the beginning of 2023, like max capacity to where I kept telling myself, I got this. And people would say, How are you doing this? How is this working? And I believe that the those that suffered the most were our kids. They were loved, they were taken care of, but they were not being nurtured. They were a side, they were like another side hustle, is kind of how I look at it now.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

So And their norm was being form was being formed by me trying to create structure, your little resistance to that. And like you said, they were getting hugs and love done and and but they were their norm of what that's what what marriage looks like, a healthy marriage looks like, was being formed.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

And I was okay with it. I mean, I wasn't, but I was, in a sense of, well, this is just what this is just what families do. This is this is what we have to do to survive financially. And it usually comes down to money, right? Like we don't, unless you really don't want to be home with your kids, which can be a thing too, you know, like it's that's okay if you really do love your job and you're good at your job and that's what you want to do. This is not a I don't ever want to guilt someone that they're a dual working family because financially a lot of people like we couldn't, we couldn't have one of us stay home. Financially, we we had to. So we've worked into this role now.

SPEAKER_03 50:09

Well, it took us 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

Yeah, but we did it. And what what I have realized is that what I don't enjoy or what I haven't liked in the in the kids is a result of what has happened from the past.

SPEAKER_03 50:28

And so you're speaking to um not making space for nurturing for me. Like what personal growth.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

For yeah, so for um from the way that I operated under survival mode and almost bucking the system of what you were trying to do in the house and operating day by day in survival, the discipline, the no means no, the disrespect or the things that was happening that was sucking the soul out of me. I was looking in the mirror of what I had caused.

SPEAKER_03 51:10

Should we give a couple of practical examples? Sure. I can think of one.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Um be nice. Oh, yeah.

unknown 51:17

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Just kidding. I'm not being nice. I mean, I'm yeah, go.

SPEAKER_03 51:21

I think about one thing that would help you be able to sit down is you not have to pick up toys and clothes and go after all the the three youngest, picking up things after them, right? That's a time taker. And they'll go out and have fun, they'll be spontaneous and and impulsive and do things and then move on to the next thing, and then you're getting up the mess behind them. Yes, that's a good example. And one thing we worked on, I was I I recognize that and I want was trying to encourage you, I wanted to encourage you to make them pick up their own messes. Like, why should you have to do that? You don't like a messy house. You're like, you're if when you're uncomfortable, that's another thing that's making you even more uncomfortable is a messy house. And your go-to was, well, I have to fix this. I'm not willing to take time to make them do it and spend the energy to make them pick it up. I'm just gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

Right. So instead of teaching, that's a big piece of of where I I look at it, I didn't have time to teach. So I just do it.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

I don't have time, I'm just gonna do it. And that goes to like again, the comparison thing. I see these moms and social media, thank you very much, where moms are cooking with their kids and they're teaching them and they're doing arts and crafts and all these things. And I'm like, I should be doing that stuff. That and then you feel and then you take that on and go, well, you suck as a mom because you're not doing those things.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

Yeah, it's such a lie.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Yeah. And so now having uh the big huge realization that the kids are operating the in the fashion that they're operating a lot of because of past parenting. And I'm not okay with that. So that's where it was like we have to take a look at ourselves. If your marriage is not going how you want it, if your if your kids are not reacting or acting or how you wished they would, what is it inside of you? What what is what is and it's not a guilt thing, truly. It is fully just self-reflection, and I've had to sit in it and I have had to ball, I've had to have kicking and screaming fights with God. I mean, I have I I just like it was again another simple, smaller little bit rock bottom of I'm not gonna take this no more. Like I am better than this, I am worthy. And the and the more that I want, like the more is more of God, more of peace and joy and love. And I know that we can we can get there because we're getting there. And so I kind of flop my way of thinking in in the last two weeks, um, even just from Sunday, this past Sunday, literally.

SPEAKER_03 54:21

On the drive to church, you were just, yeah, you were expressing some things and working some things out, and I got to hear some just beautiful things.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

And and keep my mouth shut.

unknown 54:33

Listen.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Like if I got a full-time job and I applied for this job and got put in that, and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't, whoa, I don't really know. Like, I don't want this. Normally you can, you can quit. You can't quit this job. So instead of taking the approach of like, I'm out, I am taking the approach that I'm all in. And I want to learn it, I want to teach it, I want to grow from it, I want, I want to embrace it, I want to, I want more, like instead of fighting it, like I was fighting it and I was sad and I was, I'm like, I no more. I'm like, I just want more of these kids. I want to look at them in a add in admiration and love and be grateful for them. And the more I teach them, the more grateful they will be for me, of me.

SPEAKER_03 55:29

So it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:31

You had you can't quit the job, but you can, you can and you could have taken it down to part-time by going to a full-time job and being a part-time mom. And as we're going through this transition, I remember in the early days of you have being um stay-at-home, you had tons of job offers. You had people calling and saying, What? So you hey, by the way, we have this position open. I think it's perfect for you. We had um leaders in our community who are, you know, have servant hearts and they are have their own ministries calling up and saying, I've got this great opportunity for you. I really think you need to do this. And how much of a poll was that for you to just, oh yeah, just take the easy road and go?

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Even to two weeks ago, even I'm like, oh, I think I need to call them and see if that position is still open.

SPEAKER_03 56:24

Amazing. Two weeks ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

And now I'm and and yet I've said I really never want to work for someone else. I kind of have that entrepreneurial spirit like you do, where I want to all, the only boss I want is God. Period. I want to follow what He is calling me to do. And I know what that is, but it's harder. It's just harder. The easier route would be to go back and say, I just, I'm gonna go do what I'm comfortable with and what I am good at.

SPEAKER_03 56:58

I'm really I'm grateful that you've hadn't had never given into the temptation to take the easy route.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

I don't know that you would have let me in a good way.

SPEAKER_03 57:07

We know my heart. If you had said yes, we would have been off. I I would have, I would have, I think it's important to stay in the wait and just to stay in the the uncomfortable and and hear what God has to offer. And it looks like God's sending you all these job offers, right? Right. I think they're just noise.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

And so just resist and stay in the wait until you're comfortable being uncomfortable. You're comfortable with with the new stage. The new stage, and you're not, you know, responding to these offers out of an emotional state, out of fear. Yeah. And we're just not there yet.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

I keep saying, like, I the prayer and the closeness that I have grown in my relationship with Christ, there's no questions when you're right there with God. He tells you, he talks to you. He will, your discernment, the God given, when the Holy Spirit convicts you or pushes you or nudges you or any of those things, when you, when you, when your relationship with Christ, when you continue to focus on that, there isn't a question on should I? It's a no thanks. Because I know where I stand with Him and His will for my life and where I'm at, because I have fought and I've kicked and I've screamed and I've prayed and I've asked and I've like circled and circled. And all I continue to hear is you need to rest in me and you need to trust me.

SPEAKER_02 58:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

And so I'm doing that. Those two, um, I just what do you want me to know? What like and every day just still I love it.

SPEAKER_03 58:51

Yeah. I love it. I'm I am so happy that we made this choice months ago. And I'm so happy for where we're at today. And I know it's you you've only recently seen the fruits of your labor and what you've gone through. I've been watching this upward climb improvement in the entire family ever since day one. And it's been beautiful to watch. And in this, in this spirit of extreme ownership, I get to look back and go, man, I just wish I'd done this. I wish I could have provided for the family more so we never had to do daycare from the beginning or years ago. And um, it's one of those regrets I have to let go of.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

I've loved watching you step in to the leadership role. You've always led the family, you've always been an incredible leader.

SPEAKER_03 59:48

I've never had true clarity on really what that looks like. And it really the compassion part was a big part of it. That was a missing component to it.

SPEAKER_00 59:55

Yeah. And it's been an honor as a wife to do that. Like I, you have started to shine even in the last three months of I'm providing it's this ownership of you love that I'm able to be home, even though it's been awful for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

Yeah, it's bittersweet. It's bittersweet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

It's it's amazing. But it's like for me in my mind, I was like, this is awful. What am I doing? What are we doing? And yet it is amazing. Like I just had to change my perspective on all of it and say, what an honor this is to allow Amos to be the provider, to be the leader. And I get to, I get, I get to reap the benefits of that by being in what you would say sweet spot. And that's to be a mom and a nurturer and yet still go do the things that I love.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:52

And so And that sweet spot doesn't mean you at home. It means you as a nurturer. Yeah. As a loving, caring nurturer. And maybe there's a time that you get but get to go back to to work and spend more time working. That's not the sweet spot I'm talking about, the lack of that. The sweet spot is of you as a mom, as a woman. Right. It's beautiful. And it's so fulfilling to me. Guys, if you're listening, this is a beautiful thing. It's amazing to watch. And I get so much fulfillment watching my wife being a nurture her and and and just sitting in that place, even through all the mess, I I just I see so much, so many diamonds and gold and just beautiful things in that moment. And it gives me so much fulfillment, much more fulfillment, and it makes my work easier amazingly. I'm I'm I'm working harder for the right reasons. And um the the future of our family looks brighter. Our relationship, your, yours, my relationship has improved dramatically.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

It's just things are up. It's it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

That was a yeah, sigh. Did you hear that?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:14

Uh one hearing this in agreement.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

What I one thing that I didn't even refer to Nade's notes I have written down, but the one piece that we can end on here, and um Brittany printed this, and I don't know if she even knew what she was doing. I I believe this was a god nudge. And she was printing some pictures off or tearing them out of a book or doing something, and she put one on the fridge, and the words on the on it are, if you want to change the world, go home and take care of your family. Wow. And I saw it in the midst of it was like a month ago. So I was in the midst of it all. And I remember in my head going, You've got to be kidding me.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

Like From a nine-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:08

She and she hadn't she had no idea. Like she just it just ended up on the fridge. And um, I'm sure she had no, she just she had no idea what that was going to mean to me. So I kept it there and I read it every single day. If you want to change the world, because the other one that I have is the one that Stella gave us, and it says you are like so in the bathroom, you are capable of changing the world. And then the one that Britney puts up is if you want to do that, take care of us.

unknown 1:03:36

Oh, yeah. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

And the one Stella gave me, I think of being out in the world, changing the world, not in my home changing the world. And so, man, there's just that that it's a lot, but we all are capable of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:54

It's true. The the generational curses in some of our family stops here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:01

We're no longer we're not okay with being divorced, drunk, and in debt and depressed. The 40s. And sick. Sick out sick, sick, it stops here. And our offspring and their families, we are teaching them today financial responsibility. We're teaching them, we're trying to set that norm for what a healthy relationship looks like. We're not always getting that right. We haven't. We're getting better at it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

We're not in the norm anymore.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

And um we are raising the bar for what a family can look like out of love. Yeah. And for, out of love for our kids and their kids and their kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:44

And thank you to everyone who's invested in our life. Like I think I can think of so many couples and so many mentors and all the people that have helped us along the way. Like this is not, you have to have them. You can't like I fully, fully believe that you have to have a community and people surrounding you that love you and speak truth into your life. And while you're limping along, they're running and they're pulling you with them. Like you, like you pushers. Yeah. Like, come on. You you know it's not that bad. You have to surround yourself with people who've been there and done that and can walk you through some of the toughest times of your life because just around the corner, it is it's magical, truly.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:29

What I call pushers. Call you out and call you up.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

Call you up and call you up.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:33

You were messing this up, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

And that's okay, but it's not. Yeah. Like, I'm not shaming you, but it's time to move on and move up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:43

Yeah. Yeah. Great chance to operate to practice humility.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

Well, thank you, audience, for allowing us and me to talk through everything that we have been going through. It is, it has been beautifully uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:59

Yeah. Thanks for listening. We hope this blesses you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. We want to change lives through this podcast. And if you want to support this podcast or our guests, please see the links below for our Patreon and giving links.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

And like and subscribe and also share our podcast as much as possible. Thank you.