Marriage Myths You Might Believe: Allen and Jennifer Parr

Dave: Before we get started today, let’s talk [about] small groups.

Ann: Yes, because everyone at this time of year starts thinking, “What small group materials should I use?”

Dave: Yes, we’ve led hundreds of groups, and you’ve got to have great material. FamilyLife has you covered. We have great, great material. The Art of Marriage^®, Vertical Marriage^®; you name it, we’ve got it, and it’s on sale [for] the month of August. You go to FamilyLife.com/shop, and it’s 25 percent off.

Ann: Let me just say thank you to all the small group leaders. You are making a difference. Keep going.

Dave: Again, that’s FamilyLife.com/shop. Get 25 percent off right now.

Jennifer: There’s a saying that—what is it?—that men marry women hoping that they don’t change, right?

Allen: —and they normally do.

Jennifer: —even though our bodies are going to change. Women marry men hoping that they will change or that we can change them.

Ann: We’ll change them because we’re so wonderful—

Jennifer: —right.

Ann: —they’re just going to change.

Allen: Right.

Dave: How’s that working?

Allen: Exactly.

Ann: Believe me, I tried.

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: Alright, we’ve got the Parrs back in here. Allen and Jennifer are back.

Ann: Don’t you love them?

Dave: Yes, I never—I’ve watched your YouTube^®—obviously, [but] we never met until you came to Orlando.

Ann: You guys are big YouTubers. [You have] millions of followers. Whoof!

Allen: Thank you.

Dave: Did you ever see that happening?

Allen: No, definitely not.

Dave: No?

Allen: It wasn’t something that we went into thinking [would happen]. I was teaching high school math at the time I started the YouTube channel.

Ann: You have an engineering degree—

Allen: Yes.

Ann: —and a theological degree.

Dave: —and a communications partner right here.

Allen: Yes.

Dave: It makes sense that it works.

Ann: But it’s cool that you started your YouTube channel the year that you got married.

Allen: Yes, the first video was August 17,2015. We got married on November 15, 2015. They happened at the same exact time.

Ann: You guys have been married eight years.

Allen: —eight years.

Jennifer: —eight years.

Ann: You have a five—

Dave: —two kids.

Allen: —five and seven.

Ann: —seven-year-old.

Dave: I didn’t ask you yesterday. Any more kids on the…you thinking? [Laughter]

Allen: We are still exploring the possibility.

Dave: Alright.

Jennifer: We’re factoring in a lot of things; like energy to keep up with the two we have now. [Laughter] What is it? You go from man defense to zone.

Dave: You go to zones.

Allen: —zone; that’s what we heard.

Ann: She knew that.

Allen: I know. “So, you get those two and I’m going to cover this one over here.”

Jennifer: Yes, divide and conquer.

Dave: It’s true, especially with three boys. Oh, my goodness, it was awesome; it was crazy.

Ann: —under five.

Dave: Let’s talk. I know you do a lot of different things on your YouTube [channel], a lot on theology and helping people. But let’s talk about relationships, marriage and relationships, like what are some of the myths.

Ann: Because there are a lot.

Allen: There are a lot.

Ann: Do you wish that you would have had somebody to talk to you even more about what some of these myths are?

Allen: Yes, I wish I had a YouTube video available— [Laughter] —that I could have—

Dave: —a short one.

Allen: —gone to before marriage, not necessarily to determine whether I would have gotten married, but to set my expectations to understand.

Ann: Yes.

Allen: One of the myths that we’ve talked about in the past is this myth that marriage will make me happy. That is a huge myth that I think many people, singles, myself included [believe] because whenever I was single, if I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t happy for quite a bit of the time as a single. I had quite a bit of times when I was, but in my mind, I thought, “What will make me truly happy is if I can get married.”

What I would want our listeners to understand is that while there is quite a bit of joy and happiness that comes with marriage, people always revert to who they really are. It’s just a matter of time.

I’m sure you all know all the different science and different—what is it? —different hormones and different things that stimulate us that, when we’re in love, there [are] all these, I don’t know exactly what ones they are, but there are different things that come from our brains, different hormones that are released and different things like that make us feel so happy and so euphoric and so excited.

I believe that God gives us that and He wants us to have that because that’s what drives us to the altar. But those feelings of excitement and feelings of extreme euphoria are not designed to stay there. [It is] like what you mentioned in one of our other messages about when you get saved. First you are on fire because it’s a new relationship and you want to tell everybody about Jesus.

Ann: It’s exactly that.

Allen: Sometime, 30 years later, it wears off.

Ann: If you don’t work hard at it.

Allen: Understanding that we always revert back to who we are. If you are a depressed single or someone who’s not happy, if you get married thinking that marriage is going to bring you happiness, unfortunately it is going to be a sad reality because you are going to revert to who you are, which is why it’s important to make sure that we do have some sense of emotional health and happiness when we’re single because that’s who we are going to be when we’re married.

Ann: Jennifer, did you find that, too?

Jennifer: Oh, yes. I think the reason why that’s important, too, is if you marry for happiness, which as Allen said is important, when you are not happy, I think it’s easy to end a marriage, too, for that same reason.

Ann: —because you say, “I’m not happy. You are not making me happy. We’re not happy anymore.” So, you think—what we have said is you think you’ve married the wrong person.

Jennifer: Exactly.

Allen: Right.

Ann: —because the right person will continually make me happy.

Allen: Right.

Ann: The only person who will make you happy continually is Jesus.

Jennifer: Amen.

Ann: Even then your feelings are going to come and go.

Allen: Exactly.

Dave: As I preached at my church for years, I had people who came up to say, because I was so honest about this fact, that you struggle and we struggle, and when we did marriage messages together, singles would come up and say, “I don’t know if I want to get married after hearing you guys because you talk about how hard it is. Isn’t it good?”

I said, “Yes, it’s awesome,” but we tried to be honest and say, ‘It’s hard; it’s not the center and the source of your happiness.’”

How did you navigate that when you realized that?

Jennifer: I think that’s another myth, that you don’t have to work in marriage. We work to accomplish so many things in life. We work hard to get that job. We work hard to keep the job. We work hard in school. We work hard if we’re training for a marathon, we work hard to train—

Allen: —to build a business.

Jennifer: —you’re building a business.

We work hard at everything else or things that we want. There is a myth that marriage doesn’t take that much work or shouldn’t or “It should be easy.”

Allen: It should just happen naturally.

Ann: —because love just flows. It’s easy.

Allen: It’s because when we were dating it was easy for the most part. When I counsel dating couples and they’re having a ton of conflict and a ton of arguing I always say, “You might want to reevaluate whether this is the right [one].” Because when we were dating it was so easy. We were in love. We’d talk for six, seven hours. The conflict was there but it was minimal.

That’s how it’s supposed to be. If you are having extreme conflict when you’re dating, that’s supposed to be the easiest time.

Ann: That is a red flag.

Allen: Yes, that’s a red flag.

Jennifer: That’s a red flag.

Allen: Exactly. We think, “Oh, marriage should be just like it was when we were dating.” We didn’t realize all these stressors that come into your relationship that erode your happiness. Those could be picking up extra hours at work or those could be a sickness or, as much as we love our kids and I’m not going to call our kids stressors, but they provide more responsibility.

These different things happen that weren’t present when you were dating; therefore, these things can erode from this feeling of being euphoric all the time.

Ann: I remember, too—we talked about this in Vertical Marriage, our book—at year ten, I felt so unhappy. I really did think, “I need to get my happiness back, but I can only get it back if Dave does A, B, C, because he’s the problem and he’s the reason I’m not happy because he’s not living out these things I want him to live.”

That can happen to any of us at any time in a marriage. At one point, God impressed me with “I never created Dave or made Dave to meet all of your needs or to make you happy. It’s not his job; that’s My job.”

Jennifer: Absolutely.

Allen: Right.

Ann: Man, when I get my eyes off Jesus, I put them on Dave and his weaknesses. Then I’m not happy and I depend on somebody else to bring me my happiness. I think that is so common.

Allen: Yes, I think that is.

Ann: It’s a myth.

Dave: Is that what you would say to the couple that is listening right now and she or he is thinking, “I’m not happy. I’m living where they said. What do I do?” Is that what you would say?

Jennifer: I love that you said that when your eyes were removed from God or maybe there was disconnection for that season, it makes it easier to put them on something else or someone else.

Ann: —an idol.

Jennifer: —an idol; yes. I wish someone had told me that. [Laughter]

Ann: Me, too.

Jennifer: That’s why it’s a myth. We talk about happiness and marriage is happy. That’s another thing, too. It’s beautiful. It was designed to be.

Ann: That’s your best friend.

Jennifer: Yes, but I did not realize how even that could become an idol: the searching for that happiness and that becomes an idol in the idea of being married; someone providing the happiness for you. Yes, it’s bent all backwards.

Ann: It is. I feel like, too, that’s why we need to be in the Word. It’s a reminder it’s that daily surrendering of my life: “Jesus, I give you my life. You’re my King; I’m going to follow You,” because if I don’t do that—this is just me—I can easily put all my expectations on Dave instead of God.

Allen: Yes, and I always tell people that I think we’re all responsible for our own happiness. If I’m being fully transparent, there have been seasons in our marriage where my wife was struggling with—

Jennifer: —postpartum depression.

Allen: —postpartum depression, different things, yes. I don’t know how much you want to know.

Jennifer: —anxiety.

Allen: —yes, anxiety, and I felt like “I’m good; I’m happy.” I wasn’t able to relate to that.

I think that one of the things that can be a great source of happiness is whenever you feel like you’re really walking in God’s purpose for your life. Oh, my goodness, then when seasons maybe whenever we were having, as we call it, intense fellowships or maybe having some disagreements or different tension, if you will, I didn’t put all of my happiness in my marriage.

It’s like, “If my marriage is having tension, then I’m not happy.” No, that’s an aspect of my life, that’s a compartment of my life, it’s the most important part but I can still experience extreme happiness because I have this purpose that I’m living out and I have things I love to do: I love to play golf; I love to ski, I love to do these things, so I have this ability to still find joy in life even when one part of my life might be tense.

But when we feel like our marriage is everything of who we are, I feel that’s when “Okay, if I’m not happy in my marriage, I’m not happy as a person.”

Ann: It’s putting too much on a person, you are saying.

Jennifer: Yes.

Allen: Yes.

Ann: Or on the institution of marriage.

Dave: Yes, and in some ways, you said earlier, if you’re not happy as a single it’s probably going to creep into your marriage. I think what we do is blame our spouse for our unhappiness.

Allen: Right.

Dave: “Everything else in my life is fine but you…” That’s wrong. She or he might be contributing to that—obviously, because you are married—but you’re elevating that person bigger than they actually are the factor in your own happiness.

Ann: I think we—as women, there is this kind of high that we get from helping a man—

Jennifer: —yes.

Ann: —changing a man thinking, “Oh, I’m going to help him out of that, and I’m going to bring him and help him and I’m going to make him better.” Girlfriend, sister, let me tell you: That is a wrong place to go. One, you are not going to change him. Maybe this is another myth: “I’m going to change him.”

Allen: Ooh! That’s another good myth.

Ann: “I’m going to make him better.” No, you’re not. We can influence; we have great power and influence over our spouse, but we are not going to change them. If you are dating someone and are thinking, “I’m going to change them,” no, nope.

Allen: We should have added that in our video.

Jennifer: That’s a word. [Laughter]

Ann: That is not your job. That is God’s job.

Jennifer: Amen. I love that because there’s a saying that, what is it? — “That men marry women hoping that they don’t change,” right?

Allen: They normally do.

Jennifer: Our bodies are going to change; our hormones are going to change. “And women marry men hoping that they will change or that we can change them.”

Ann: —will change them because we’re so wonderful—

Jennifer: Right.

Ann: —they’ll just going to change.

Allen: Yes, right.

Dave: How’s that working?

Allen: Exactly.

Ann: Believe me, I tried. [Laughter] But I’ll tell you—

Jennifer: I’m sure you tried hard.

Ann: —I tried hard. I’m writing a book about it right now, but I will say that Jesus has changed both of us.

Allen: That’s what has to happen.

Ann: And to allow God to do that in His timing. But you can pray, man; be on your face praying.

Dave: Alright, do you have another myth?

Allen: Another myth is that sex in marriage should be normal, natural, easy, never have to work on it, never have to talk about it.

Ann: See, I’m clapping. [Clapping] Thank you for talking about this.

Allen: I’m telling you, if you are attracted whenever you are dating, because we waited until we were married—I know that everybody didn’t do that—

Ann: We did, too.

Allen: —we waited until we were married—we had previous experiences unfortunately before with others before we got married, but with each other, we waited. The expectation is “I’m attracted to you; you’re attracted to me. We should be like rabbits. Put us in the same room, and we should be able to figure this all out. We should never have any issue at all.”

Well, that might be some people’s testimony; it may be some people’s thing. But it’s just like anything else that it requires intentionality in many levels, [like] frequency. Different seasons—

Ann: Oh, yes!

Allen: —can change things. When you get married, and you don’t have any kids, and you don’t have any responsibilities—we always joke that our first year of marriage we would go out to the movies on a Tuesday night.

Jennifer: —on a Tuesday night.

Allen: —like, who does that now? [Laughter]

Ann: We do it now as empty nesters.

Dave: You will do it again someday.

Allen: Oh, my goodness!

Dave: You’re not going to do it for a long time.

Allen: I’m not ready for that yet, but when it happens, I’ll be ready for it. But we used to be foot loose and fancy free.

Jennifer: What is it called? “The DINK life.”

Allen: Yes.

Allen and Jennifer: — “dual income, no kids." 

Jennifer: D-I-N-K.

Ann: I hadn’t heard of that.

Allen: Yes, we were rolling. [Laughter] But then when you have a toddler—

Jennifer: —responsibilities.

Allen: —and breastfeeding and slobber is going all over you, it’s not the most romantic situation. Things can change. You have to work a little harder in those seasons.

Dave: The reality is that’s a myth: “[Sex] is going to be easy.” Again, we’re not saying there aren’t some couples [who] have days and weeks and months and it’s wonderful. Again, it’s hard work. It’s like any other part of your marriage.

Ann: But every couple [has] transitions in life with babies, with menopause. There are so many different things with stress, with physical things that are going on, so this is an area that we have to continually work on. I agree.

Allen: Yes.

Jennifer: It doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way. I love how we brought this full circle. We started out going to movies in the middle of the week and you just confirmed it’s going to come back. You are going to go back to that season.

What you’re feeling in that season, the fatigue, sometimes you have the desire, but you don’t have the energy, or you have the energy, but you don’t have the desire because you of hormonal changes. Whatever it is, it is a season, and we shouldn’t make permanent, not necessarily only decisions, but permanent ideas about that season thinking, “Something’s wrong with me; somethings wrong with him; something’s wrong with our sex life.”

Allen: We’ve dealt with that thinking, “What’s wrong with me?” because there have been seasons where maybe your desire wasn’t as much as you would like it to be, which is very common with women.

Ann: —very.

Allen: You were wondering, “God, is there something wrong with me?” Then I was wondering, “Okay, are you not attracted to me anymore? Is it me?”

I want our listeners and our viewers to know, if you are in that season, there is nothing wrong with you all. There might be some things you need to work out and talk through, but for the most part, these are normal, natural seasons that happen, like you said, especially when you have little kids.

Those seasons specifically where you have to be very intentional about having conversations about expectations: “Okay, what do you need now?” What you need in this season might be very different than what I need in this season. You and I have talked about that. You might need more attention and more affection and more affirmation, and I might need more physical touch.

That’s where the conversation and communication have to be.

Dave: One of the keys is what you just said, talk about it.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: A lot of couples have a hard time talking about this area of their relationship because it can be awkward. You feel like, “I’m feeling things I don’t want to say out loud.” You may not know why she’s not interested, and it’s important to talk.

Couples don’t talk about this. They joke about it; they don’t talk about it. So, just talk about it.

Ann: It’s scary.

Dave: It’s a big one. Okay, [do you have] another myth?

Allen: Yes, that marriage will cure my lust problem. There are a lot of people, and now adays I can’t just say men, because men and women equally are struggling with lust, struggling with pornography, unfortunately. Statistics do show that it’s as much of a women’s issue as it is a men’s issue.

But when you are single you think, “Okay, the solution to my lust problem is that I will be able to get married,” so we need to make sure that we’re not going into marriage thinking, “All I need to do to solve this problem, because I’m burning with lust, is if I just get married this problem will go away.” No, you still have to exercise extreme amounts of self-control when you get married, as well.

Ann: I totally agree. I’ve talked to so many women who are engaged. I will ask them, “Have you guys talked about pornography and if this has been an issue in either of your lives?”

I would say almost 100 percent of the time that person will say, “Yes, but we know that it won’t be a problem after we get married.”

Allen: Wow!

Ann: That is one of the biggest myths ever [and] that it will come back. Either spouse can feel incredibly betrayed and taken aback thinking, “I didn’t know this would be an issue.”

Now, you’ve got a full-blown problem and expectations of what you thought it would be like. Now you may not even want to be with this person.

Jennifer: Exactly.

Allen: Right; yes.

Dave: How do you encourage couples to talk about it before or after their marriage?

Allen: I think that you hit on something. Whenever we are single, we have to be careful that we don’t get so caught up being in love that we aren’t willing to have a difficult conversation. We need to understand, “What is the depth of this? Is this a serious full-blown addiction?” We need to be open and honest, [asking], “Are you watching this five times a day or whatever.”

Get into that really. I might be hard because people may not want to be honest about it and things of that nature. But you need to know how much of a stronghold this is or whether something—

Ann: That’s a good word, stronghold.

Allen: Yes, it’s a stronghold because I’ve seen so many people’s marriages that have been derailed because of this issue, and I know you all have as well. I would say, “Before marriage, talk about it.

After [you are] married, you are committed. There is nothing you can do there so in terms of getting out of it for that reason but at that point there needs to be some extreme accountability that is in place. But it can be very difficult if you are married to somebody who doesn’t want that accountability or what not.

But if there is a godly couple and you’re listening and one or both of you are struggling with this, there needs to be some extreme accountability; something like Covenant Eyes, something like another couple, giving each other access to your passwords, to your browser history and things of that nature because if not, it can really hinder your intimacy.

Ann: We recently talked to Debra Fileta, who is a counselor and therapist. One of the things that she said was this is a matter of going deeper to see “Why is this a struggle?”

Jennifer: Right.

Ann: I think that too, to find a therapist, to get into the deeper levels of when you are triggered, something has happened when you are triggered, maybe not every time. It could be this habit you’ve gotten into for a long time. But to think through with a godly biblical counselor, somebody that can get to the root of that.

Shelby: Dave is going to have some closing thoughts for you that you’ve got to hear in just a second. But first, I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Allen and Jennifer Parr on FamilyLife Today.

Allen has an incredibly successful YouTube channel. We’re going to throw a link in the show notes to his YouTube channel called The Beat. You can check that out to learn more about Allen’s ministry and how he uses YouTube to reach young people for Jesus.

It’s almost the end of August. As you are getting ready for small groups coming up in the fall, we wanted to let you know that all of our FamilyLife workbooks are now 25 percent off for the remainder of this month.

You can go to the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com, look around, and pick out something that will work best for you. Again, head over to FamilyLifeToday.com or click on the link in the show notes.

Alright, here’s Dave with some closing thoughts.

Dave: If you’ve got a secret in your marriage, you’ve got to bring it into the light. This area can be a secret for a man or a woman. It was in our marriage early. I had a secret. I thought, “It’s a secret because I’m going to win this thing. It’s only one time.” Until I brought it from the dark into the light—because when it’s in the dark the dark always wins—I brought it in the light with my wife and then with men, healing began.

James 5: “You confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed.” It’s interesting that healing is a part of that. I would say, if you are listening today and you are thinking, “I’ve got a secret, and I’m losing this battle,” you’ve got tell somebody.

Ann: Let me add, I want you to remember this: Jesus is not running away from you; He’s not disgusted by you; He loves you.

Dave: He’s running to you.

Ann: Yes, He wants to enter in to give you the power to find freedom. That’s true for your marriage, too. He has the best for you as you follow Him and put Him number one in your life and in your marriage.

Jennifer: That was so good.

Dave: Thanks, guys. It was great having you here. 

Allen: Thank you.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Shelby: Coming up next week, do you ever feel the weight of mommy guilt? That’s a thing; that’s a real thing. Well, Maggie Combs is going to be here to talk about motherhood without all the rules. That’s next week. We hope you will join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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