Did I Marry the Wrong One? (Ep. 15)

Robert and Shelly tackle one of the most common (and rarely spoken) questions in marriage: "Did I marry the wrong person?" They break down the cultural myth of "the right one," explore the biblical origins of marriage, and challenge listeners to shift from searching for the perfect person to becoming the right person.

Key Topics Covered

1. The "Right One" Myth

• The idea that there is one perfect soulmate for every person is one of the biggest lies absorbed about marriage.
• The math alone makes it statistically impossible — GPT calculated the odds at 1 in 16 quintillion.
• Believing in this myth causes people to question their marriage when things get hard, rather than working through difficulty.

2. Soulmates — Reframed

• The term "soulmate" isn't inherently wrong — but it's harmful when it implies a magical person you have to find.
• A true soulmate is someone you choose and commit to — not someone you discover through mystical destiny.
• Robert: "Shelly is the right one for me because I married her."

3. The Chicken Exit

• Many people enter marriage with a mental escape plan: "If it gets too hard, I'm out."
• As long as that exit is available, you'll never experience the security and freedom that total commitment creates.
• Real commitment says: "I've already decided I'm staying — so let's figure this out together."
• When you remove the chicken exit, your energy shifts from looking for a way out to finding a way through.

4. The Trailhead of Marriage (Biblical Foundation)

• Marriage began with God in Genesis. Adam was formed from creation; Eve was formed from Adam — God's greatest masterpiece.
• The Hebrew word for "helper" (ezer) actually means shield — not a subordinate role, but one of excellence.
• Genesis 2:24 — "A man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."
• God was not speaking to Adam and Eve (they had no parents) — He was speaking to us.

5. Leaving & Cleaving

• Marriage creates a new primary family. Your spouse becomes your new #1 human relationship.
• Allowing parents to have the deciding vote in your marriage is one of the fastest ways to damage it.
• The Hebrew word for "united" (hold fast) carries the idea of clinging, sticking, and adhering — like Gorilla Glue, not Velcro.
• Divorce hurts so deeply because two people who have truly bonded cannot be separated without damage to both.

6. The Fall & Why Marriage Is Hard

• Sin entering the world (the Fall) fractured everything, including marriage.
• Adam's work became difficult; Eve's role in nurturing life became painful.
• We all carry a sin nature — and two deeply broken people in the same room do not produce "happily ever after" on their own.

7. Jesus on Marriage (Matthew 19)

• Religious leaders tried to trap Jesus on the topic of divorce. He responded by quoting Genesis 2 — pointing back to God's original design.
• Divorce is not God's design; it exists because of the hardness of human hearts.

8. Marriage as a Mystery (Ephesians 5:31-32)

• Paul reveals that marriage illustrates the relationship between Christ and the church.
• Christ didn't wait until we were worthy — He loved first, sacrificed first, pursued first.
• That is covenant love — love that makes a promise before it knows the outcome.
• Covenant vs. contract: A contract says "I'll do my part if you do yours." Covenant love doesn't wait.

Summit Challenge (Action Steps)

1. Remove the chicken exit. Pay attention this week to any language or behavior that keeps an exit open — joking about divorce, threatening to leave, mentally comparing your spouse. Replace those thoughts with: "I'm not going anywhere. We are on the same team, and we're going to figure this out."
2. Stop asking "Did I marry the right one?" — start asking "Am I becoming the right one?"
3. Before the week is over, ask your spouse: "How can I make it easier to be married to me?" — and listen without defending yourself. End with: "I choose you today, and tomorrow I will choose you again."
4. If you've weaponized the word "divorce" in arguments, humble yourself, go to your spouse, and ask for forgiveness. Say: "I'm sorry for making you question the security of our marriage. I'm committed to us, and I want to fight for our marriage, not against it."

Resources

• Marriage counseling & relationship assessments available at marriagebasecamp.com

Marriage Base Camp helps couples navigate the trail of marriage, one step at a time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Your marriage was not created in the beauty and the perfection of the Garden of Eden. Your marriage was formed in a world at war. Covenant love makes a promise to love before it knows the outcome.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

Because as long as divorce is a weapon, one of you will use it. But you're backed into a corner.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Well, hey guys, welcome back to the Marriage Based Camp podcast. We are so glad that you have tuned in. My name is Robert, and I am here with the ever-loving, ever-talented, beautiful Shelly Kahn, the only person in the world who can really tell me that I'm wrong and then and then somehow make me thank you for it.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Oh, yeah. Interesting. This could be a good podcast. Started out great.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah. Um, this podcast is gonna be a a little different, I think, from our normal ones. And what I mean by that is it's mostly gonna be me talking.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Woohoo! No, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Uh, although you're gonna feel free to at any point. Yeah, I'll jump in when I jump in, say what you need to say. Um, correct, tell me I'm wrong, and then I'll thank you for it.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

So let me start by asking you guys who are listening to this a question. All right. And by the way, if you're listening to this podcast with your spouse, maybe don't answer this out loud. Um, here's the question. Have you ever wondered, even for just a moment, did I marry the wrong person? So if you're alone, maybe just slip your hand up just a little bit. We'll see it. Don't worry. We'll see it. Uh maybe you had that thought. Did I marry the wrong person? Maybe it was after your first fight. Maybe it was after your biggest fight that you've had. Maybe it was after a disappointing anniversary, or when they forgot your anniversary. Uh maybe it's after you met someone else who just seemed to, I don't know, get you in a way that your spouse doesn't. Or maybe they seem to understand you in a way that you think your spouse doesn't. Now, most people would never say those words out loud. They would never say, Maybe I married the wrong person. Most people wouldn't say that. Uh, but many people have thought it.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

Yeah. And so life gets really, really hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I think you just in our culture, there's this idea, there's this concept, okay? And and I think it's one of the biggest lies that we absorb about marriage, and it starts long before we ever even get married. And here, here's the the the lie, the concept, right? It's called the right one myth. At least that's what we call it. The the right one myth. And here's the idea that comes behind it is that somewhere out there, there is one perfect person made just for you. We give it names like my soulmate, that missing puzzle piece, my destiny, meant for each other, happily ever after, whatever terminology you want to put on that. And if you can just find that one person, everything will naturally click into place, and your marriage will work and it will succeed, and you'll end up just like all the movies that you watch.

SPEAKER_04 4:12

So you marry you want to marry Jesus? So yeah. Like that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

It sounds romantic.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

Yeah, that's not possible.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

It's not even that it's not possible. It it's incredibly misleading.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

And so, because here's the deal if there were only one perfect person for every other person out there, just think about that math for a second. Like some guy 400 years ago would have married the wrong woman, and then the entire chain would have been thrown off for the rest of uh human history. Like the statistics and probabilities of that are just off the charts that we each have found that one person perfectly throughout all of history. That's like I actually did I asked uh GPT to do the math for me. Yeah, it's like one in 16 quintillion of a possibility. Yeah, I don't even know what a quintillion is. I don't either, much less 16 of them. So everybody after that one idiot would have been marrying the wrong person simply because he chose poorly. That's obviously ridiculous.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

It it can't be that way, right?

SPEAKER_05 5:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Even though we laugh at it, we often live as if that myth is absolutely true. There's this one magical unicorn of a person that we have to somehow find. And so here's what happens we get married, things are exciting at first as they are, then life happens as it does. Right, the bills start rolling in, the kids start popping out, the stress happens, different personalities collide.

SPEAKER_04 5:56

What you think was cute at one point now just gets under ever loving nerves, you know, those things.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Whoa, hey, this just turned into therapy call.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

Just kidding. Yeah, but yeah, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, those different expectations uh happen, all the things, not to mention people just change over time, right? Like, are you the same person you were 10 years ago? No, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, not even five years ago, really, right? Me neither. No, and so people just change over time. So what ends up happening is marriage gets hard, it gets difficult. And instead of thinking when that happens, oh, this is that difficult terrain that Robert and Shelly were talking about, and I guess we need to learn to navigate this new trail in our marriage, right? Like people don't think that what they think is something's gotta be wrong, right? Yeah, and since I'm not the one that's wrong, right, it can be me. Yeah, it's clearly them. And so, because here's the deal here's the here's the myth that we believe. If it were really meant to be, it wouldn't be this difficult.

unknown 7:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

And then we start thinking maybe it's difficult because because I married the wrong person. I married the wrong one.

SPEAKER_05 7:08

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I didn't intend to, I didn't mean to, right, but it happened. I married the wrong one, but it gets even worse. Like the the the backlash of believing this gets even worse. So maybe you even begin thinking at that point, if my spouse is the wrong person, then that means someone else must be the right person.

SPEAKER_05 7:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

You see that? So maybe that coworker that I connect with really easily is actually the right person. Maybe I should look up my old boyfriend or girlfriend on Facebook. Maybe they were the right person and I missed it.

unknown 7:48

Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

You see where this goes?

SPEAKER_05 7:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

So listen, believing that there is one magical unicorn of a person out there in the world will only make you question your marriage.

SPEAKER_05 8:01

True.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

It's not gonna make you work on it, it's not gonna make you excel at it. So pause before this podcast, before anyone's like, okay, Robert's out of his mind. I'm turning this thing off. Like, like before that, before you just think I'm spouting a bunch of BS, I want to be very clear here, okay? I I think the term soulmate has been misused and is actually harmful if what you mean by the term soulmate is that there's this unicorn of a person out there that you have to magically find.

SPEAKER_05 8:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

All right. If, however, what you mean by the term is that you're talking about someone that you choose.

unknown 8:45

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Use the use the term to share your soul with, yes. Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yes, okay. So I'm not just anti-the word, I'm anti, I'm anti-the incorrect use of the word.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

Right. And that that somebody else can complete you. So you're looking for this unicorn of a person to fill all your needs.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, so I would say this to all the listeners. I am happily married to Shelly.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

That's good news.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

That's good news. In case you were wondering.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

Just saying that.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

And I I absolutely believe that Shelly, get this, is the right one for me. You could even say that we are soulmates, right? But do you know why Shelly is the right one for me? Do you know why Shelly is my soulmate? Because I married her. She's the one I married. She's not the right one because we discovered some mystical destiny, right? She she is the right one because before God, before each other, before our family, and all of our friends, we made a covenant with each other and God to be the right one with each other. Yeah, that's why she's the right one. And every day since then, we've been choosing to become the right one for each other. Here's the honest truth. Had I married someone else, that someone else would have been the right one for me.

SPEAKER_05 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Had you married someone else, that someone else would have been the right one for you.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

Yeah, I like it. Let me ask you, do you believe God brings people together?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

You bet I do. Like, if God knew me before the creation of the world, that's what the Bible says.

SPEAKER_05 10:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

He knew me. He not only knew me, he formed me, he crafted me.

SPEAKER_05 10:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

If he knew me before the creation of the world, then that means he knew you also. And I gotta believe that he knew that we would end up together.

unknown 10:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And so I do believe that there is some compatibilities. Call it what you will. There's some there's some uh predestination of marriage, if you will.

SPEAKER_05 11:07

True, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

That that God's like, yeah, I I know Robert and Shelley are gonna get together, and I'm gonna do some amazing things through them.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Because we allow him to allow to choose continually over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

What's sad about it is I think there are people that God knows are gonna get together that could have done some really great things.

unknown 11:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

And they chose not to.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

They chose not to do something.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Because they didn't choose one another.

SPEAKER_04 11:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

They didn't keep choosing one another. And uh they sort of s short circuited what God w would have seen happen.

SPEAKER_04 11:45

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Um I think this is a much healthier way to think about marriage. In other words, don't spend your life trying to find the right one. Because think about this. What if there isn't a right one for you?

SPEAKER_05 12:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

What if what if God has called you to singleness? So now you're questioning God, do you want me to be single or or have I just not found the right one?

unknown 12:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

How about this? Become the right one. Yeah. If you're single, become the right one. If you're dating, become the right one. If you're married, become the right one. And then day after day, keep choosing the one you already married. We often joke that on on the the day of wedding, right? The day of your your marriage ceremony, if God were to give you a gift, he would give you a like a full-length mirror.

SPEAKER_04 12:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

And be like, and and by the way, that full-length mirror is your spouse. And and if he put a tag on it, like a like a gift tag, it would say, you know, congratulations, happy wedding day. Here's to you discovering exactly the kind of person you are.

SPEAKER_05 13:06

Yuck.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Because that's what our that's what our spouses are. They are full-length mirrors that are showing us ourselves.

SPEAKER_05 13:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

If you think about it, your spouse is you standing outside of you, looking back at you, talking to you about you.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

That hurts my brain.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Do I need to say that again?

SPEAKER_04 13:29

Maybe. Yeah. Your spouse.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Your spouse is you.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Standing outside of you, looking back at you.

SPEAKER_04 13:40

How long did it take you to come up with this?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Talking to you about you.

SPEAKER_04 13:44

That's crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

In other words, a mirror.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

A mirror. Yeah. I guess you know that.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

And here's the problem with believing there's only, you know, the right one. If you think your happiness depends on finding the perfect person, then every conflict becomes just more evidence that maybe you did pick the wrong one.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

That that confirmation bias at that point.

SPEAKER_04 14:07

Start see, there's nothing. Yep, there's nothing. I knew it. Yep, that's true. Then you're always looking for an exit. And it reminds me of standing in a line on a roller coaster and you know, waiting in line, getting closer and closer, your heart's pounding. You're like, oh crap, what did I do? And then right before you board, there's like that little gate, the chicken exit, which I have taken before.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Oh, yeah. You know this for a reason.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

Right. Dang. I don't really like roller coasters, but I have taken it before. And I think there's people who decide, you know what? I don't think I want to do this after all. I'm out. I don't want to do this roller coaster.

SPEAKER_05 14:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

And then they step out and they walk back to safety. Well, here's the problem. A lot of people get married with a chicken exit already in their mind. Like they don't, you wouldn't call it that, but that's what it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

If it gets hard, I can I can disbail.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

Yeah. They don't have like divorce papers ready to go, but they have a mental escape planned. If this gets hard, I'm out. If I stop feeling happy, then I'm gonna go live for myself. If I meet someone else who's better, well they're the right one. They're the right one. If we grow apart, I'm out. In their minds, there's always a mental exit ramp, which is really, really dangerous. And as long as that exit is available, you'll never experience the kind of security that total commitment creates. I just I mean, let that sink in.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

You'll never experience the kind of security and freedom that that total commitment actually creates.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

Right. Because real commitment um isn't saying I'll stay as long as this works. And real commitment is saying I've always I've already decided I'm staying. So let's figure this out together. We're on the same team. When you remove the chicken exit, something incredible happens. Your energy begins to shift from looking for a way out to finding a way through. Like we're doing we're doing this.

unknown 16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

So we have to figure it out together. And it just kind of removes that. I have an out. Yeah. So okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

So we need to go on a little journey here. And so we need to go back and we need to talk about what we are calling the trailhead of marriage.

SPEAKER_05 16:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Every trail begins somewhere.

SPEAKER_05 16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Every trail has a trailhead. That's what you call the place that you begin the trail.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Marriage has a trail head.

unknown 16:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

It's a trail, it's a journey, and it starts somewhere. So we need to go back and figure out where it starts. And we believe that marriage began with God. You may be like, what does marriage have to do with God? Listen, everything.

SPEAKER_05 17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Okay. And you may be like, but but I don't even believe in God. What what's God got to do with my marriage? Look.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

Everything.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

You don't even know it.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

It doesn't matter if you believe in God. It's it's sort of like um if you were looking at a map when you were going about to go on a hike and you were looking at a map, and that map is printed on a piece of paper.

SPEAKER_05 17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Right? And it's a flat piece of paper.

unknown 17:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

And it's just ink on a flat piece of paper. But yet those mountains are real.

unknown 17:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Right? It's not a 3D piece of paper that shows the topography of the mountains. Like, like there's some lines on there, and you can choose to believe those lines or not believe those lines. True. The truth is that mountain's there, and you're gonna have to go up right in elevation. So it doesn't matter if you don't believe in God. God still has everything to do with your marriage because that's where it started.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

He is the paper.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

He is the paper. He's the 3D paper. He's those 3D puzzles, y'all. So here's the trailhead of marriage, okay? Many, many years ago, God made Adam.

unknown 18:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

He formed him out of the dust of the ground. He formed him from nature. He literally made a man from nature. And that explains in so many ways why man still loves nature. Right? We love to hunt, we love to fish, we love to camp, we love to grill, we love to stare at fires for absolutely no reason and stretch our eyes looking at mountains and all kinds of stuff. Okay. But it didn't take long for God to look at Adam and say, This is not a good thing that he is alone. Guys, you know this already. Like, how long does your wife have to be out of town before you start unraveling? Like two hours, three hours?

SPEAKER_04 18:54

I just had this thought. What would have happened if he would create a woman first? She's fine alone.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that Adam would have rolled around anytime soon.

SPEAKER_05 19:06

I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yeah, it doesn't take very long for us to just sort of lose control when uh when our wives are gone. Like by day two, we're eating cereal out of a mixing bowl with a fork because we don't know where anything is in the kitchen. Okay. So God creates Eve at that point.

unknown 19:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

And notice that he does not create Eve from the earth. He doesn't create Eve the same way he created Adam. He doesn't make her out of mud and dirt. She actually comes from Adam. That's why Adam is called man, right? And Eve, before she was called Eve, is called wool man. She came from man, out of man. Okay? Now notice this. This is cool.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

All right.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Before Adam was made, God's greatest creation masterpiece up to that point was the earth. It was creation, right? It was it was trees, it was plants, it was, you know, the ocean. It was all creation itself. And so he forms Adam from out of his greatest creation up until that point. And at that point, God's greatest masterpiece was Adam. So he forms Eve. And he doesn't go back to creation because he's already created something better, and that is Adam, man. And so mankind at that point was God's greatest masterpiece of creation. And that's what he goes to when he creates Eve. And if that's just not proof, right there, black and white, that women are better than men, I don't know what is. Okay, like you see the progression. There's like creation, which is great, right? And then there's a man. Oh, that's better.

SPEAKER_05 20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

And then there's woman. That's even better. Right. So, side note. God did not make Eve so that she would cook for Adam.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

That's not that's not the main point of that whole thing. Not that she could do the dishes.

SPEAKER_05 21:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Right. He created her as a, this is what the the Hebrew term says, a helper. Right? Uh different translations may say help make or help meet. It literally, the word itself in Hebrew is used elsewhere in the Bible, and it literally means shield. Isn't that interesting?

SPEAKER_04 21:32

Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah. So it doesn't mean that she was to do all the things that Adam didn't want to do.

unknown 21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

That's not what helper means. What it means is she was to excel in all the ways that Adam could not and ever would not excel. A perfect companion, not to help him accomplish his will, but to together accomplish, even from the very this is what people don't. Understand even from the very beginning of the Bible, there's an equality that God is highlighting between men and women. Now, culture and society had not caught up, and they they wouldn't catch up for still a very, very, very long time. Trying to but from the beginning, God sort of put that in place. And so the only thing that Adam knew up until Eve was creation. He knew trees and plants and everything and animals. God had given him the task of naming all the animals.

SPEAKER_04 22:35

That's probably the worst day of his life.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Which is funny, you know. Uh so Adam is all alone. God makes Eve. And listen what Adam says when he sees Eve for the first time. Now remember, don't forget, clothes have not been invented yet.

SPEAKER_04 22:56

This is true.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Eve did not go to Target.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

Oh Lord, she wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

So Eve shows up. Here's Adam. All he knows is creation, birds, animals, deer, pigs, hippopotamus, hippopotami. I don't know what the plural of that is. It's all he knows. Okay. Eve shows up. And it's interesting if you read your Bible in Genesis chapter 2, the the uh justification of the wording even changes as if to illustrate this is a different type of writing. He goes into basically a psalm. It's a it's a poetry at this point. In Genesis chapter 2, verse 23, Adam says this, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. In other words, he's like, Whoa, baby, that is different than all those other things.

SPEAKER_04 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Dibs. I gotta get me some of that.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

All right, we're done. Right. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

That's that's literally, yeah. I mean, what he's saying.

SPEAKER_04 24:00

I mean, could you imagine staring at a pig all day and a cow and then seeing a woman? You're like, oh a naked woman. Yeah, this is different.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

That'd be different.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

That'd be very different.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Yeah. That did something to him that those pigs did not do. You know what I'm saying? I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_04 24:13

Thank goodness.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

I mean, men have been men for since the beginning. So I I know what that did for Adam.

SPEAKER_05 24:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

So you still tracking with me?

SPEAKER_05 24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Okay. The very next verse. Here's what it says. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. That's Genesis chapter 2, verse 24.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

So the next verse.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

The very next verse. Well, here's the deal. Maybe you've heard that verse before at weddings. Yeah. Somebody will say that, right? The two becoming one. At that point, Adam and Eve, they were married. Okay. They didn't they didn't rent out barns and event centers back then and have a big ceremony. Okay. And it says a man leaves his father and his mother. Adam and Eve did not have a father and a mother. Isn't that a weird thing to say to someone who does not have a father and a mother?

SPEAKER_05 25:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Which means that God is not really talking to Adam and Eve in that moment, is He? He's talking to who? He's talking to us.

SPEAKER_05 25:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Everyone who would come after Adam and Eve. Right? So I think we need to understand this concept, honestly, way more in our culture. We got a lot of people getting married who are not leaving the umbrella of their parents.

SPEAKER_04 25:37

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

What I mean is it doesn't say uh a man shall abandon his father and mother and be united to his wife. It doesn't say that. But it does say leave, okay? And leave your parents, meaning your spouse should become your new primary human relationship in your life.

SPEAKER_05 26:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

You are leaving the umbrella of your parents when you get married to your spouse. So just you know, real practically here, men, if you're listening to this, if you want to kill your marriage quickly, do this. Let your mom get the deciding vote of what happens in your marriage.

SPEAKER_05 26:23

Yikes.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

You'll kill it. You'll kill it so fast it'll whip your head.

SPEAKER_05 26:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Right? Women.

SPEAKER_05 26:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

If you want to have a very short marriage, then allow your dad's opinion to carry more weight than your new husband's opinion.

SPEAKER_04 26:38

Yeah, that won't last very long.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Listen, I know I just stepped on a bunch of toes.

unknown 26:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

But this happens all the time. Like wives are effectively castrating their husbands because they're going back to their dad to do everything.

SPEAKER_05 26:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Look, your dad's potentially better at all the things than your new husband. That's a thing that can happen.

SPEAKER_04 27:01

But your husband's also very young, probably. If you're married younger and your dad's a lot older, has a lot more experience.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

And your dad didn't know that stuff when he was 20.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Right? It took him 30 more years to figure that out. So marriage creates a brand new family.

unknown 27:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

I hear parents all the time say, like, for example, when their daughter gets married, they'll say, We gained a new son. Listen, no, you didn't. You lost a daughter.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

I'm just gonna let that sit out there because I know I just offended somebody.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

So can I tell you a video I saw the other day?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

It was and you may have seen this. It was a mom convincing, she's on social media, convincing, like it's okay. Even though my kids are grown and they have their own spouses, we still go on a family vacation without the other spouses, just their family unit. Yeah, how that's that's appropriate and it's a good thing to do. They're married, that's great, but we still go on our own family vacations. I was like, that's so dysfunctional.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

That is a way of doing it.

SPEAKER_04 28:14

You must be a joy to live with and be a mother-in-law.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

That's crazy. I want that is crazy. I wanna I wanna go back to what to what I just said.

SPEAKER_05 28:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Look, I get it, right? Like if your daughter got married, she's still your daughter, right? I get it. I understand that. What I'm saying is positionally, she is not under you anymore. No, she has a husband, right? And that husband is her new primary immediate family. You have just become the extended family.

SPEAKER_04 28:52

We are the extended family.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yeah, I know it may sound mean, it may sound harsh, but when two people get married, they are creating a new and separate family. And as long as mother-in-law or dad or whoever it is tries to chip away at that, you are only going to harm that marriage. Yeah. So then it says this. So it says, A man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. Some translations might read the man will hold fast to his wife. That Hebrew word, united or hold fast, it carries the idea of clinging, sticking, and adhering. Now, what does that sound like? Like what in our world clings, sticks, and adheres?

SPEAKER_04 29:38

Uh glue.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Glue. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:41

Double sided tape.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Yeah. You know what doesn't do all those things? Velcro.

SPEAKER_05 29:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Velcro may cling, right? It may stick. It does not adhere.

SPEAKER_05 29:54

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

And here's the deal. Listen, we got a lot of marriages out there being held together with velcro and not glue.

SPEAKER_04 30:02

Like super glue. The gorilla glue. That's a big difference. Because yeah, I mean, velcro could just come apart.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah. Velcro will stick. It will it will cling to one another. It will not adhere. You can get those things apart.

SPEAKER_05 30:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

And each individual piece still looks the same as when it got put together. But listen, you gorilla glue two pieces of paper together and pull those pieces of paper apart, which one of those pieces of paper is going to get affected?

SPEAKER_05 30:34

Uh both.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Both of them. Tore up. Yeah. That paper is going to be unrecognizable.

SPEAKER_05 30:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

And this is why divorce hurts so much.

SPEAKER_05 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Because when a man leaves his father and mother and is united, cling to, stuck to, adhered to his wife, that is literally what happens physicianally, emotionally, spiritually, all the ways. That's what happens.

SPEAKER_04 31:04

I can't remember if I think we show this at church and we used to marriage conferences, but we have this really ugly temporarile plastic. It used to be kind of clear.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

We've got more than one.

SPEAKER_04 31:15

That's true. We have more than one. But if we have this particular one, we've saved it.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

Because I guess I think put like chili in or something. It didn't think twice about it.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Chili or spaghetti or something.

SPEAKER_04 31:26

And heated it up in the microwave the next day.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:29

And the two became one. It is forever red. And I I have bleached it. I have done everything possible to get the stain off.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:38

No, it's not coming off.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

It's not only red, it's like the plastic is etched.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

Yes. It's like I don't know what happened, but it became they are one.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Exactly. For the rest of the bowl and the chili were two.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

Now they are one.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

And they became one.

SPEAKER_04 31:54

Yes. It's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Absolutely. So also we see that from the very beginning, Adam and Eve, they had jobs. They had roles. They had responsibilities. Adam was to work the land. He was to protect. He was to provide. He was to lead. Right. Eve, she was to nurture, she was to support. That means uplift. She was to shield. She was to excel in all the ways that Adam could not excel.

unknown 32:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

She would be called the mother of all living. In fact, she was called the mother of all living long before she ever had a kid.

unknown 32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Right. So we can we see these uh roles and responsibilities from Adam and Eve. And and by the way, that's not saying that women shouldn't work, okay? Or that men can't be shields for their wife. Like we are each able to do different roles. Just know that when we operate out of some of those natural roles that God has called us to, it's just gonna require a different amount of energy and effort.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

And just yeah, grace. And yeah, it's just gonna be a little, it's just different.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

It's just different, right? So up till now, marriage was relatively easy. Like it was basically the honeymoon phase 24-7, man. Adam and Eve, they had it, they had it nice.

unknown 33:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Right? Like every time Adam came home from a hard day's work, Eve was standing there, and all she had was a beer and and and no clothes on, right? Because remember, clothes still weren't invented.

SPEAKER_04 33:28

But beer was?

SPEAKER_00 33:30

I'm taking some liberties here. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

Okay. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah, it was a it was an early strain.

SPEAKER_05 33:40

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Uh, every time Eve walked in the house, Adam had already folded the laundry and he just wanted to cuddle without any expectation of sex.

SPEAKER_05 33:50

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

It was great. Like marriage was perfect.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

And then something happened.

SPEAKER_04 33:58

Yes, it did.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Sin, what we call sin, the thing that separates us from God originally, not including the payment that Jesus paid for us on the cross. The thing that separates us from God, it happened. It entered the world, right? That we call this the fall of mankind. And when when the fall happens, it fractures everything, including marriage. Everything that was right and good got flipped literally upside down and backwards. And now everything that should be easy became hard, and everything that should be hard, uh, that you hard to do actually became easy to do, and that's not a good thing. That's a bad thing. So here's here's what you need to see. So Adam uh before the fall, and Eve before the fall, like their roles and responsibilities did not change before or after the fall. They were still called to do the things that God had called them to do. The difference was this Adam was still called to work the land, except now it was going to be very difficult. He was going to have to deal with rocks in the soil and by the sweat of his brow. And so things that should have been the most natural and and and life-giving to him was now going to be very difficult and frustrating for him to do. He's still called to do it, but now it's going to be really difficult. Eve, she was still expected to be the mother of all living. But now having kids would be difficult and painful.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

Can we just say what a horrible, horrible I still God did not even have a dog?

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Yeah. Well, here's the deal: painful in not only childbirth, yes, but also in the raising of those children.

SPEAKER_04 35:45

It's all difficult.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

It's painful, right? The pain of childbirth does not end when the child is born.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

I hope I hope I hope you uh hope you're out there and you know that.

SPEAKER_04 35:56

That's just the beginning of the pain.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah. So further, those uh curses on Adam and Eve have even been passed down to us.

SPEAKER_05 36:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

So we have a sin nature in us simply because sin entered the world, and everyone who was born after that, everyone that ever was uh had a belly button, in other words, has a sin nature. Adam and Eve didn't have belly buttons. This is true. I mean, I say they don't. I don't know. I would why would they?

SPEAKER_04 36:26

They shouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

They shouldn't have.

SPEAKER_04 36:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

But maybe I don't know. That's beyond my pay grade. Yeah. Here's what here's what I want you to see. You gotta keep you gotta keep going with me here, people. Okay. This is what I want you to see. This right here is why your marriage is so hard.

SPEAKER_05 36:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

You're like, wait, what? Like that what happened way back then is why my marriage is difficult. Yes, absolutely. And this is why sometimes you may have have the thoughts and and wonder if you married the wrong one. Your marriage was not created in the beauty and the perfection of the Garden of Eden.

unknown 37:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Your marriage was formed in a world at war.

unknown 37:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

And you are deeply broken because of sin nature, and your spouse is deeply broken because of their sin nature. And when you put two deeply broken people and when they get married and they move into the same room, there is no such thing as happily ever after.

SPEAKER_04 37:24

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

You still tracking?

SPEAKER_04 37:28

Yeah, I am.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

All right. So that was the beginning of the Bible, right? That was Old Testament, all the way to the left, right? Let's fast forward over to the right side.

SPEAKER_05 37:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

New Testament. A lot of time has passed. Jesus is now here on the earth. And this time or at this time, divorce was very common. Turns out marriage has been difficult from the beginning. Right? So marriage is com or uh, well, marriage is common, and divorce is also common. Further, people sort of came down on different sides of divorce at this time, which they still do today. Uh, some people thought that you could get a divorce only in the case of adultery.

unknown 38:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

And other people thought, no, no, you can get a divorce pretty much for any reason. Like even if your wife burned dinner.

SPEAKER_04 38:19

But she couldn't divorce. He could only divorce. Correct. Correct? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. If you found your wife unattractive, that's crazy. You could divorce her. The man could divorce her, like you said. She did not have the the rights and the equalities to be able to do that then.

SPEAKER_05 38:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Um. Anyway, so the religious leaders one day they they wanted to trap Jesus and question him about marriage. Because listen, they even knew this was a hard topic. They even knew that that we believe this, but we also believe this, and those things aren't really like one another. And so let's see what Jesus has to say about it. And so in Matthew chapter 19, verses three through five, they asked Jesus this. They say, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? Because that was a thought. That was one of the prevailing thoughts.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

Dorce your wife or burning your dinner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

And here, yeah. And here was the trap. The trap was if he said yes, then they would say, Why do you disagree with Moses? And if he said no, they would say, Well, why do you disagree with God and tradition? So they thought they were going to trap him. He doesn't take the bait, obviously. Here's what he says, Haven't you read that in the beginning the creator made them male and female? He said. And then he said, For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. Sound familiar?

unknown 39:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Jesus literally answers their question by quoting Genesis chapter 2.

SPEAKER_05 39:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

And so then they ask, Well, well, how come Moses tells us that we can get divorced if it's needed? Right? Like if it's necessary, that he says we can, you know, have a certificate of divorce or whatever. And Jesus answers them. And he's like, Because you're sinful.

SPEAKER_05 40:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Because you have sin, and sin makes your hard heart, and your hard hearts don't do what God wants you to do. Right? You're not submitting to one another. Divorce, in other words, he says, is not God's design, and your sin has corrupted God's design.

unknown 40:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

So he goes all the way back to the beginning and supports that. Okay. You there?

SPEAKER_05 40:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Let's fast forward just a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 40:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Right? Several years later, after Jesus' death and resurrection, the apostle Paul, who was a church planner, he's writing to the church in Ephesus or the churches in Ephesus about submitting to one another. He's trying to get the point across. Hey, you guys need to submit to one another. And then he says this, uh as if he as if to say, hey, since we're on the topic of submission, let me say this. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 31 and 32. Verse 31 says this for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. Sound familiar?

SPEAKER_04 41:22

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Back to Genesis 2 again. And then he says this in verse 32. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church. So he's saying, look, guys, I got a mystery for you. Okay. I got a conundrum for you. And then he takes uh the verse in Genesis 2, and then he says, What happens in marriage is exactly like the relationship between Christ and his church. So he takes what God says about marriage, and then he says, That is what it looks like for Christ to love his church. So here's what this means. It in God's desire to illustrate the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church, that is us, he chooses marriage as the illustration. He could have chosen anything. He could have used any analogy. He could have said, marriage is like the sun. It rises on one side and it sets on, you know what I mean? He could have used the tide as an example. He could have used a baby being born, chirping birds, literally anything. Creation was at his disposal for analogies, and he chooses marriage to illustrate that. But why? Think about that. Why did he choose marriage? I think it's because it shows us this that Christ didn't wait until we were worthy of his love for coming to us.

SPEAKER_05 42:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

He loved us first, and that's what we ought to do in marriage.

SPEAKER_04 42:57

Not wait for the other one to no, he sacrificed for us first.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

That's what we should do in marriage. He pursued us first, that's what we should do in marriage. Why? Because that's covenant love. Covenant love does not begin after someone starts to deserve it. That's not covenant love.

SPEAKER_04 43:20

No, that's a contract.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

That's a contract.

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

If you do your part, then I will do mine. If you don't do your part, then I'm not obligated to do mine.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

That's laziness, too.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

That's sick, y'all. Covenant love makes a promise to love before it knows the outcome. So let me wrap this all up.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

If you are married, and if you're listening to this, we're assuming that you you are or want to be or something like that, then you are married to the right one. If you are married, you are married to the right one. One. Your wedding day ended the search for the right one. So now your calling is to spend the rest of your life loving that person with the same steadfast, sacrificial, covenant love that Christ has shown you.

SPEAKER_04 44:16

And it's not easy, folks. So and like you're saying, we have an enemy, an enemy who wants to destroy everything that looks, smells, and acts like God. So he's coming after your marriage. Like I know several couples who and once they got married, things just got really difficult. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's because Satan is after your marriage.

SPEAKER_05 44:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:46

Like he just wants to destroy it. So all right, so here's a little summit challenge. Um first, remove the chicken exit. This week, pay attention to your language. Do you joke about divorce? Do you threaten to leave often? Or like when things get difficult, do you physically leave the house? Um, do you mentally compare your spouse to someone else? Um, every one of those little things are chicken exits. We need you to close the exits. God needs you to close the exits. Replace any thoughts like these um with a new sentence. I'm not going anywhere. We are on the same team and we're going to figure this out.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah. You are the right one.

SPEAKER_04 45:28

You are the right one. We are on the same team, we're on the same side. We're going to figure this out together. Because as long as divorce is a weapon, one of you will use it when you're backed into a corner.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:40

Plain and simple. So, second, stop asking, did I marry the right one instead? Am I becoming the right one? Right. Then, before the week is over, sit down with your spouse and ask, how can I make it easier to be married to me? Holy cow, what a question. How can I make it be how can I make it easier for you to be married to me? Yeah. Or how can I love you better?

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Yeah. What's it like to be on the other side of me?

SPEAKER_04 46:10

Yes. Yeah. Man, those are great questions. But here's the second part. Listen without defending yourself. Like if you're asking the question and they start telling you the truth, and immediately you start defending, you totally just shut them down.

unknown 46:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:26

They're not, even if you went back and tried to ask again, they're not gonna tell you. So do not get defended. Defending yourself. And in the end of the conversation, just I choose you today, and tomorrow I will choose you again. At the end of the conversation, I choose you today, and tomorrow I'm going to choose you again.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

There's so much freedom in that. There's so much joy in that. There's so much safety and security in that.

SPEAKER_05 46:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

To know that that's where your spouse is, and that's where their mind is, and that's where their heart is. And I would just add one more quick thing. Like if you have been keeping that chicken exit open and and you've been thrown around the word divorce in the middle of an argument, like a flashbang in a house or a grenade, you know what I mean? Yeah. If if you've used it as leverage, if if you've used it to scare your spouse.

SPEAKER_05 47:22

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Listen, you you've used it just to shut the conversation down because you're tired and you don't want to talk anymore. And you know if you use that word, that'll shut it down.

SPEAKER_05 47:30

That's horrible.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Some of y'all out there know exactly what I'm talking about. Like if that's you, and if you've done that, here's what you need to do: humble yourself.

SPEAKER_05 47:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Go to your spouse and ask for forgiveness.

SPEAKER_05 47:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

And say something like this look, I'm sorry for making you question the security of our marriage.

SPEAKER_05 47:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

And I don't want to weaponize the word divorce. And I want you to know that I'm committed to us and I want to fight for our marriage, not against it.

SPEAKER_04 47:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

You want to be a man, you do that. You want to be a woman, you do that.

SPEAKER_04 48:04

That's huge. Yeah. Crazy. Um, and maybe this is all kind of new to you and you might need help navigating some of this. Um, we certainly know that that's a challenge. Guys, we're here to help. We provide marriage counseling. We have some great assessments that help pinpoint both your strengths and growth areas of your relationship. So just reach out to us. You can learn more at marriagebasecamp.com. Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Yeah, thanks for listening to today's podcast. Hopefully, you learned a little bit about uh marriage and the trailhead and where it came from and what God intended and how you and your spouse can grow and begin to experience the the greatest marriage ever. And so we uh hope to see you guys next time. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Welcome to the face of genesis to revelation every follow every mummy, lay down this market.