Taming the Cows in Your Marriage: Building Resilience Through Intentional Habits – Love Like You Mean It 2025

Episode Transcript

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Taming the Cows in Your Marriage: Building Resilience Through Intentional Habits – Love Like You Mean It 2025

Guest:Brian and Jen Goins

From the series:Love Like You Mean It 2025 (Day 4 of 5)

Air date:March 13, 2025

Brian:All the enemy cares about is he creates distance between you and your spouse and you and God. That’s his goal. He’s been playing that place since Genesis chapter 3 because when he does that, he can destroy generations. And so if we don’t close the gap, somebody else is stepping in the gap.

Ann:Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave:And I’m Dave Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Ann:We are excited to have you join us today. We want to invite you to go on the Love Like You Mean It® marriage cruise, next year 2026, because it is amazing. You need it. Your marriage needs it. Your family needs it. And it’s February 14th till the 21st.

Dave:It’s a great week. I can’t over exaggerate how great a week it is. And you’re going to hear a talk today from one of the sessions that we were a part of on the cruise, and this is one of six or seven talks. There’s workshops; there’s worship; there’s bands; it’s pretty amazing.

Ann:And there’s a sale this month that you will not get this offer cheaper any other time, but this month, so now’s the time to sign up and we’re 60 percent full already.

Dave:Yeah, so you better sign up quick. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com. You can sign up there or give us a call at 1-800-358-6329. That’s 800-“F” as in Family, “L” as in Life, and the word “TODAY.” And you’re going to hear a talk today that Brian and Jen Goins gave on the cruise, and it was powerful. I actually watched this one from my room. Every session is on your TV in your room as well. So if you want to stay in your pajamas like I did this day and watch it, you can do that or you can go down to the auditorium.

One thing that you’re going to hear at the beginning is they talk about a clip that they showed about a couple—this actually happened in Wisconsin, I think it was—who was on a date night. They were driving by a mountain, and a cow fell off the mountain and landed on the hood of their car. It’s a true story and it’s pretty interesting that this is an area where cows are known to fall off the mountain.

Their point was there’ll be cows falling in your marriage at any time. Trials, adversity come, financial issues, rebellious children, you name it, and you need to know how to face the challenges together. So that’s where they started and that’s what they’re talking about when you hear their comment about the cows. So enjoy Brian and Jen.

[Recorded Message]

Brian:Resilience is the ability to adapt, recover, and thrive in the face of adversity, challenges, or stress. It refers to both mental and emotional strength, allowing individuals to bounce back from setbacks.

Jen:So over and over again, as we looked for those definitions and we saw the idea of bounce back from setbacks, the Bible would use terms like steadfast or persevere or endure or having joy in the midst of trials. And that’s what we want to talk about today. What does it take to develop some bounce back muscles in our marriage? How can we be steadfast? How can we persevere? How can we endure?

Brian:Yeah. So first one, there’s three that we’re going to talk about. First, bounce back marriages don’t go it alone. Bounce back marriages don’t go it alone. What’s true about all those stories of resilience that we love is that the hero is rarely or never does it alone. We see this throughout history. We see this throughout novels. We see this in the Bible all over the place. We can just name him, it’s David and… Okay, people say Goliath. Goliath wasn’t his friend. I don’t know if you guys didn’t know that or not. You might’ve missed the story.

Jen:It’s a trick question.

Brian:But it was David and… Jonathan. There we go. There we go. There we go. Elijah and Elisha, Esther and Mordecai, Priscilla and Aquila. Paul, notice the trend, Paul and Barnabas. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. Even the Son of Man, the Son of God came down and the first thing He did before He started His ministry was get into a small group. He got a posse of disciples around Him and said this is how you’re supposed to do life. He’s going to model it for us.

Solomon said, “Two are better than one.” He also said in Proverbs 15:22, “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisors they succeed.” All that to say great adventures of any story of resilience is rarely done alone. And I find too often when we start feeling isolated from each other, I know I do, I tend to shrink back from people rather than step into people. And what God is going to say is that if you want to do this well, if you want to have a story of resilience, you’re going to need to have a few people in your corner.

Jen:As we thought of a few things that we’ve gone through in our life, the cows that have dropped in our life—things like a job loss, moving around to different places all over the country, raising colicky babies, and then raising rebellious teenagers. Like years without sleep, years of worry and frustration at times with our children, Brian’s bouts of depression, my, at times, persistent back pain. We have been so thankful to have people around us, to have a team around us, people to help us, encourage us as we’ve felt discouraged to keep going when we want to give up. A group of Jesus following peers to enjoy life with, but also some older people in our life to give us some wisdom.

So we want to ask you, who is on your marriage team? Are you traveling alone? A great place to start, we think, is at your local church. This might be a time where you look at each other and you’re thinking, “We haven’t been there in a while,” or “We haven’t made that a priority in a while.” And we would encourage you that this might be a moment where you’re like, “Let’s go back.” Maybe you’ve had some church hurt, whatever it might be, “Let’s go back and give it another try” because we know that’s a place where you can find that older couple that might be able to build into you as well as that younger group or whatever stage you are in that’s going to walk through those times.

I know I just had a lady at church come up to me and ask, it wasn’t about marriage, it was just one-on-one, but she said, “Will you please build into me? Will you be my mentor?” And I know it was hard for her to kind of get up the nerve to ask me that. I don’t know her super well, but I was honored, and I’d be happy to walk with her through some things. So I know it might be scary, but if you go up to a couple that you know and say, “Hey, give us some guidance,” I’m sure they would be happy to do that.

Here’s the key: don’t go it alone, don’t isolate, get a team around you. Our first point is bounce back couples don’t go it alone.

Brian:That’s right. Secondly, bounce back Couples practice a few intentional habits. Bounce back couples practice a few intentional habits. How many of you have noticed this phenomenon on the ship? You walk up to the elevator, you press your button for your floor on the outside of the elevator, you get inside the elevator and then you look to press your button again. Has anybody else been doing this? Notice it’s Thursday guys. You’d think we would’ve broken this habit? Why haven’t we broken this habit? Because for the last 50 years of my life, I’ve gotten into an elevator, and I have pressed a button on the inside of the elevator. I can’t break that habit very easily. And that’s really what habits are. Habits are this opportunity for us to, that are repeated over time, that becomes so ingrained in us.

Reading a book—this is not up in the shop, but you can find it online—it’s called The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages. And he talks about the habits that resilient couples practice, and he talks about this. He says, “Habits are extremely powerful. From a brain science perspective, a habit forms through repetition. The more often you practice something, the more quickly your brain learns to see that activity as normal. You know that a habit has been created when you begin doing things without choosing to do them,” like pressing the button, “much like a reflex. They happen almost automatically.”

And what we found is that couples that have a story of resentment practice a few habits. They isolate from each other. They don’t have a team around them. They tend to criticize more than they praise. So what are the habits that great couples that have stories of resilience, what do they practice?

Jen:Yeah, we want to talk about those. We’re just going to talk about four of them, but we want to let you know that it’s not an exhaustive list. Brian, this Brian, my husband and Shaunti Feldhahn, who is a wonderful author and friend of ours, they do a podcast together and it’s about the 13 habits of healthy couples and happy couples. And so that’s a podcast that FamilyLife offers and it’s free. You can listen to it at any time. They have a couple different seasons, but this one season talks about the 13 habits that a happy couples say that they have. And so we’re just going to share four.

Brian:So we’ve got four that we boiled down that have been helpful for us. This might be a diagnostic list for you. You’re going to see all of them right now. We’re going to read through them and then we’re going to explain each one of them. So here are the habits that we found that has helped our marriage. First of all, play. Are we playing with each other? Okay, now I know your mind goes in multiple places, but let me define it for you. Intentionally spending quality and—I wanted to play it that night after she was done reading that book. She didn’t have that idea—intentionally spending quality and quantity time with each other; praise, intentionally pointing out the good in each other; pursue, intentionally closing the gaps when we hurt each other and pray, intentionally connect with God together. What word do you hear repeated over and over? Intentionally. FamilyLife, let’s just say this. Great marriages don’t just happen. It takes some intentionality.

Jen:Yeah, so the first one is play, intentionally spend quality and quantity time together. Now, it’s been proven that the greatest indicator of friendship, which is what we want with our spouse, we want to play with our friend, is proximity. That’s why when you go to college, you sometimes become really good friends with your roommate. Or when you live across the street from someone, and maybe they wouldn’t be your first choice, but because you live in such close proximity, you become really good friends because you’re close. The same thing has to happen with us as a couple.

So in the beginning, of course we start off our marriages like that. We love playing together. We love doing those things, spending quality and quantity time together, but here’s the problem. As we get married, our calendars inevitably start filling up, start filling up with our work, start filling up with having kids. Maybe good things like going to church or taking our kids to sports events or having really great hobbies that give us relaxation. But if we’re not careful, we can fill up so much that we look at each other and we no longer are friends. We’re not in the same space.

So quality times are those times where we have got to intentionally put it on our calendar. We have to look at our calendar and say, “What on our calendar is just about the two of us?”

Brian:Right, because you really want to make those decisions if you don’t have—anybody else struggle from calendar clutter. Yeah, you have that. You feel like the goal of calendars is to fill every space possible. Well, and we fill it up with everything but each other and so we can be together and share deeply. Now, when I say the word share deeply, some of you start getting super nervous. You’re like, “Man, I don’t have much share. I don’t have much depth in me. My depth is about the size of a kiddie pool. There’s not much there.”

I get it. You don’t know where to start and you need some help. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I mean you could get this All-Access Pass. You could watch a session when you go back home that you missed and just ask the question, what was the one thing you got out of that session? What was the thing that really encouraged you? Maybe you listened to the podcast series that Jen is talking about, and it’s set up for you to have a conversation about it afterwards.

You get pick up Ron and Nan’s book The Mindful Marriage, read a chapter a week and they have exercises right in the back. You’ll find out you’re a lot deeper than you thought, but don’t settle for “That’s just not me.” You got married. God put you together to be naked and unashamed and that just wasn’t about physical intimacy. That was about having somebody in your life that fully knows you and accepts you anyway.

Jen:Yeah, so it’s quality time where you’re sharing deeply, but it’s also that quantity time of just spending time together. Maybe it’s doing fun things together where you actually do play together, and you do a sport, or you do a hobby. But it could be running errands together or doing chores around the house or different things like that. But it’s the idea of when you build quality and quantity time, you are bonded together so when the obstacles come, you will have a resilient bounce back marriage.

Ask yourselves, do we have rhythms as a couple? Look at your calendar and ask what on that calendar is just focused on us? Can we have some rhythms of coffee dates or doing things together or maybe coming on the cruise next year and having that to look forward to. Quality and quantity time together are going to give you that bond to become a bounce back couple.

Brian:Okay, the second habit the resilient couples often practice or they intentionally practice, praise, intentionally pointing out the good in each other, intentionally pointing out the good in each other. Jen, praised me the other day with these words, “You are my best spouse.” I was like, “Who is your worst spouse?” And without even taking a breath, she said, “You,” because it’s true.

Jen:I don’t think I quite said it like that.

Brian:You did. You’re like, “You.” You did, or that’s how I heard it.

Jen:Okay.

Brian:If Charles Dickens wrote a book on marriage, it would be called A Tale of Two Spouses. He was the best of spouses; he was the worst of spouses, and so—she really liked that. Turn to your spouse and say to them, “You are one fallen person,” okay. Because that’s so true. We live in a fallen—okay, don’t keep talking. Don’t start listing out why they’re a fallen person. We married a fallen person. We live in a fallen world ruled by a fallen angel, and we wake up every day next to a fallen person.

So we can’t help but see the stubbornness, the sin, the selfishness. God put us in that marriage so that we could actually know what it’s like to be like Him who has called us to love fallen people because he does it 365, 24/7. He loves selfish, sinful, stubborn people. And all too often in marriage, what ends up happening is, is that we end up all too often pointing out what we see wrong rather than what we see right and what God’s trying to develop in that person.

Our words are powerful and so are we intentionally building and building them up with our words. The Bible says it like this, “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul,” and even more strongly in Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” Have you ever noticed how small the seed is compared to the fruit that it produces? You know little acts of praise, you’re either going to do, have planting little seeds of praise or little seeds of criticism. What gets planted in your marriage? Does your spouse hear your criticisms far more than their cheers?

We have the opportunity to bring life, to build life into one another. I know that when Jen brings life to my soul, when she does a few small things like she brags on me in front of others or she lightly just touches my back, or she will often ask me, “Is there anything that I can do for you today?” These are small seeds. They’re not that hard to do. But if all we’re focused on is what we see that’s negative in our spouse, we don’t build up that reservoir of trust and safety and joy that we have in each other. We have the opportunity to bring life.

Jen:And one thing that Brian does for me is he makes coffee for me every single morning. He gets it all ready for me and whether he leaves early and all I have to do is push the button or if he gets up early and starts it, I always have a nice hot cup of coffee, and he does it the night before he prepares and plans for it. And since we don’t have a coffee pot on our room here on the ship, he’s been getting me coffee every morning and bringing it to me in a little cup. It’s just like—

Brian:That’s all right. That’s all right. Really, that’s fine. It’s fine.

Jen:I mean, that’s such a small thing, but it says, “I love you.” It’s a habit that we now have that’s an encouragement to me.

Brian:Because you’re going to plant good seeds or bad seeds. And if you’re planting seeds of sarcasm every day just to get the joke and you’re making fun of your spouse—by the way, sarcasm is not a spiritual gift, okay—you’re going to develop fruit, you’re going to develop fruit in your marriage. What’s the fruit you want to see developed in your marriage? I want a marriage where I’m bringing life and she’s bringing life to me.

Jen:Yeah.

[Studio]

Ann:We’re Ann and Dave Wilson. We’re hearing a clip from Jen and Brian Goins from the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise. And I love this talk. I love their honesty and just the reality of trials are coming to every single marriage. And the next part we’re going to talk about how when we’re hurt by our spouse, we can either fight, flee, or freeze.

Dave:And we’ve done all three.

Ann:Yes.

Dave:And I bet you have as well so let’s go back and listen.

[Recorded Message]

Jen:And that leads us to our next habit that bounce back couples have; pursue. Pursue, they intentionally close the gaps when they hurt each other.

Brian:Yeah, Ron mentioned that when we are wounded by our spouse, our default pattern is to fight or to flee. Remember, fight or to flee. Can I add a third? It’s freeze. We fight, we flee, we freeze, which means we don’t know what to say. We feel like our brain has been flooded with emotions. We don’t even know what to do. We just stand back in shock. And all we know is we fall back and when we either fight, flee or freeze, we know none of those patterns work well.

Jen:Yeah, we fall back into them quite a bit. Brian and I remember a time when we froze. We froze out each other. We had the experience, the loss of a job, and so we were in need of work. We lived in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time. We had an opportunity in Atlanta, Georgia, and we went down to Georgia. We had kind of gotten past that first interview. We interviewed in person, or he did. And while we were there, I just realized I felt strongly this was not the position for Brian and this was not a place where we, just nothing felt right.

And so as we had talked about that over the weekend, we had been really coming to odds. He felt very strongly one way; I felt strongly another way. Right before we were leaving that weekend, we had a huge fight before our three-and-a-half-hour drive back from Atlanta to Charlotte. As we got in the car, we were so angry at each other and so hurt, and I was fearful, and he was fearful, and we froze. We did not say anything to each other for that three and a half hours.

In fact, I looked out my window with tears coming down my face. I could tell he was angry as all get out. He did say one thing to me. He said, “Where do you think you want your kids to eat for dinner tonight?”

Brian:Very practical question. I was thinking about their sustenance. I think that’s a good thing.

Jen:We froze. We froze. Neither of us wanted to close the gaps. We just went silent. So we are freezers. We know some of you are fighters and we know some of you are fleers. What is your default?

Brian:Yeah. And so what happens is if that’s our default and we don’t close that gap, what the apostle Paul would say is that somebody wants to move into that gap and exploit that gap because all the enemy cares about is he creates distance between you and your spouse and you and God. That’s his goal. He’s been playing that place since Genesis chapter 3 because when he does that, he can destroy generations. And so if we don’t close the gap, somebody else is stepping in the gap.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:26—I did that the first session too. I’m saying 20 sex, 26, something else is on my mind. “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”

And then Paul starts listing off all the things that we need to do to be intentional about closing that gap. “Don’t let corrupting talk come into your mouths, but only such as good for the building up, as fits the occasion,” and “that it may give grace to those who hear.” Again, how do I build praise back in.

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you resealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

I know that we’re going to be having a breakout on forgiveness. And so this isn’t a talk about conflict resolution. You can find all of that in FamilyLife or in one of these other sessions. But it really comes down to the difference between couples that are resentful towards each other and couples that are resilient is not that they have an absence of conflict, they just learn to reduce the amount of time that it takes for them to close that gap. They don’t let the enemy step in and exploit the gap.

I know for—because unresolved conflict is the playground of the enemy. Unresolved conflict is the playground of the enemy. When Jen and I, we went to bed mad that night after that three-and-a-half-hour van ride and that whole night I was letting the sun go down my anger. I was filling my head with all kinds of things that were hurtful towards Jen. I was putting all kinds of bitterness in my heart. I was letting resentment build up. I was thinking about why she was wrong, and I was right. I knew once the kids got off, we were going to have at it. I went from a freezer to a fighter, and I was ready to fight.

I remember before we got together, she basically called a timeout and said, “Brian,” and she put her hand on my shoulder, just that little bit of touch. I kind of like, “What are you doing right now? I’m mad at you. Don’t touch me.”

She’s like, “Before we get started, I definitely have some strong feelings about this decision, but I want you to know the way that I treated you was terrible yesterday. Will you please forgive me?” I look back at my lovely wife and I was like, “No, you can’t say that. Don’t throw the trump card out right now. I want to be mad. I want to be resentful. I want to build my own story of resentment.” What did Jen do? I wasn’t willing to close the gap. She closed the gap. And once she—okay, you don’t have to praise it that much.

Jen:It’s okay.

Brian:Yes, she closes the gap. And sometimes that’s what’s going to have to happen is one of us needs to say, “The team is more important than my pain right now, and I’m going to close the gap.” Now that doesn’t excuse abuse, that doesn’t excuse deep materials of trust, but what we’re talking about is that nagging irritations that we do to one another; close the gap.

Let’s do this last one, which I think is really important. Bounce back couples pray. They intentionally connect with God together. For 23 years the number one thing on my wife’s prayer list would’ve been that she would’ve had a husband that would pray with her. I was a pastor, family life teacher. I knew that Jen wanted me to connect with her in a way that was coming to the throne, asking God to lead us. She wanted to know there’s a king in the castle and it’s not me. And because I was intimidated, because I was insecure, I froze. I didn’t move. I felt like I had to do it a certain way. And all Jen was looking for is somebody to grab her hand and say, “Let’s just pray together.” I was avoiding that, and I was missing out on some great opportunities.

Jen:And so I had been praying for him for years that he would lead out in our family that way and really trying hard not to nag, not to try to manipulate, just pray. And one time, this is about six or seven years ago, we had two chairs in our living room, and we were in a season of life where at about 6:30, 7:00 every morning, we found each other there. And one day he just looked at me and he said, “Do you want to pray for our day together?” And I was like, “Yes, I do.”

Brian:Inside she’s like, “Finally!”

Jen:I’m like, “Yes!” And so we did, and it was very simple, and it was very quick, and it was no big deal. The next day we found ourselves there again. And I looked at him and I said, “Do you want to pray together?” And he said “Yes.” And the next day we found ourselves there and he looked at me and said, “Do you want to pray together?” And all of a sudden, that little habit, so simple, became a habit in our life of prayer. We didn’t do it—we’re not perfect. As you can see, we didn’t do it for 23 years of our marriage. There is hope for new habits and especially of that praying together, but that has really been encouraging for us to pray together as a couple.

Brian:That’s right, because cows are going to drop in our life. And I hate the fact that for 23 years I did not have that as a regular habit. And maybe that’s a habit you’re going to leave. It’s never too late to start. The gospel’s about fresh starts and new beginnings. And God—more than anything, the enemy wants to keep us separated from God, separated from each other, and prayer is one of the things that diminishes that gap for both.

And so those are the four things that we found that healthy couples, resilient couples, they practice on a regular basis, and they don’t wait for the feelings. They just do those habits. We like to say it’s easier to act your way into a new kind of feeling than to feel your way into new kind of acting. So don’t wait for the feelings. The feelings will follow. But those are those four habits: play, praise, pursue and pray. And just ask yourself which one we’re doing well, which one do we need to be working on together?

[Studio]

Dave:This is FamilyLife Today. We’re David Ann Wilson, and we’ve been listening to Brian and Jen Goins from the Love Like You Mean It, marriage cruise this past year. What a powerful message. It really was well, well done. And we’re inviting you to come back on the boat with us in February of 2026, the 14th through the 21st of February. We’ll be back out there; the Goins will be back out there, in the sun on the boat pouring into our marriages, making our life and our legacy better for our kids. We come back better parents—

Ann:Yeah, we do.

Dave:—better husbands and wives. The other thing nobody ever talks about is we meet people and become friends for life.

Ann:I’m amazed of how many people go on this cruise to be with their friends too, that they’ve made over the years on the ship, which is pretty sweet because they are from all over the country.

Dave:So we would love to have you come with us next year. Right now, this month of March is the best deal you’re going to get. And I’m telling you, it’s worth every dollar you spend to get on this boat. And we’d love to have you come with us. FamilyLifeToday.com is where you can sign up. Or if you’d like to give us a call, you can call us at 1-800-358-6329. That’s 800-“F” as in Family, “L” as in Life, and the word “TODAY.”

And I would say, don’t wait till tomorrow; make the call today. Go to the website FamilyLifeToday.com right now and book a room because the boat is filling up quick and you want to get the room you want, and you want to be with us. So hopefully we’ll see you there next year.

Ann:Come join us. We want to be with you.

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