A Refreshing Look at Marriage and Parenting: Insights from our 25-Year Journey

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hey friends, welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show. I'm Kevin.

Speaker 2: 0:08

And I'm Becca, and we're your hosts, here to help you reach your potential and maximize your impact in every area that matters. Let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:18

All right friends. Hey, we are excited. This is going to be more of an off the cuff unplugged podcast episode. But just over a week ago, eight days ago, we celebrated 25 years of wedded bliss back. Happy belated anniversary.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Thanks, babe, same to you and you know it's amazing that you know we're 46 years old. We got married at the age of 21. And when we talk to people, first of all, when they find out how long we've been married, they're always blown away because, thanks to our healthy lifestyle, apparently we don't look as old as we actually are. But you know, the sad reality is that, you know, 25 year marriages are very uncommon in today's world, and I'm so grateful that you've stuck with me through the years and it's been one heck of a ride, and so I think what we want to do today is just give you all some tips in the form of kind of looking back at our 25 years, and we did this while we were on a very short and interrupted anniversary getaway.

Speaker 1: 1:25

So yeah exactly Like if you, if you're not prepared for things to go differently than you planned in life, and if you can't handle that well, you're going to have a very miserable life. So we actually have a wonderful anniversary trip planned to Lani in September and we've learned that with school starting in August for our kids, it's a very difficult time to travel right around our anniversary. But, being such a momentous occasion, we decided you know we still want to get away for two nights to just have some time together. But our kids had different plans for us, so we spent a lot of our actual anniversary.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Yeah, exactly. We woke up on Tuesday morning, which was our anniversary to yeah, and that did not happen.

Speaker 2: 2:13

So I want to speak to that real quick before you go on. You know, because I was having a conversation with someone and you know the conversation is that in this season of parenting, we have three teens and a six year old almost teens, I should say and just that when you get to this season of parenting that maybe there's not the same time for the travel and the trips and we may have to step back. And you know, it's just the things and I was thinking about that because there was a little bit of maybe guilt attached to that and but it was also disrupting kind of my spirit. And as I was thinking about it, actually just this morning or yesterday, I was thinking, you know, parenting is always going to be inconvenient and there's always going to be reasons that we can't prioritize our marriage.

Speaker 2: 2:53

And I think people can go on one of two extremes and I like I always like a Goldilocks example, goldilocks example where you go down the middle.

Speaker 2: 3:00

But on one extreme is, you know, this is all about us and our kids are an interruption, and we're going to resent the interruption and and so we're not even going to deal with our kids, we're just going to let someone else take care of them and we're going to do us and we're going to do a lot of selfish things.

Speaker 2: 3:16

On the other end of the spectrum are the people that say it's that season of parenting we can't get away, we can't do things and we'll set it aside and we'll get to it in 10 years and like, listen, we restarted. So we're going to be a long time till we're empty nesters. We're going to set our most of our priority for our marriage aside until our kids are through all these seasons and then we're going to come back to it. And as I was thinking about it, I said no. For us this is a both and season. We are both going to do the hard work of parenting and the interruptions and the inconveniences and the hard conversations, and we're going to contend and set aside time to run around naked in hotel rooms and just have a really good focus time on our marriage so that we have an enriched marriage on the other end and we still show our kids that they are a priority to us within the framework of family life and marriage.

Speaker 1: 4:04

So yeah, and honestly I don't know how a marriage can survive the teenage years without the couple getting some time away.

Speaker 2: 4:14

You know it is so People can do it, but I think they just miss out on like the fun and intimacy, like it becomes such a grind, because this parenting season is a grind a lot of the time and I think that for us it's like, even if it's interrupted, I'd rather get away again and just refill our cups than not have that time and just kind of like white knuckle it through which. I think is how maybe previous generations and a lot of people would do it.

Speaker 1: 4:38

And I think that second approach is what leads to what they call the grain of divorce, where I believe it's the highest. The demographic for the highest percentage of divorce is actually empty nesters. So it's after the kids. They've done all the hard work and the kids are moving out and basically the couple has neglected their marriage and they don't even know the person that they've been living with or raising kids with but they really haven't been investing in that marriage.

Speaker 1: 5:08

So, yeah, I mean we spend, we travel a fair amount, but we also are very cautious or intentional to when we come back. You know it has some very intentional time with the kids and we're also very intentional to take trips with the kids as well. You know we've talked about this and we find that those trips where we just unplug and we play together are some of the highlights. It's not real life, but we get to do so much intentional investing in the relationship and build so many positive memories and conversations that it goes a long way. It's a big investment that pays dividends for weeks, if not months, at a time.

Speaker 2: 5:48

And we both work from home, so we have two of us at home and we're generally around most of the time when our kids are around, and so our kids do get probably more time than kids who have one parent who leaves the house for long hours of the day or maybe two parents that work all day. So we are seeding that ground as well. I'm sure we are making plenty of mistakes and can do it better. Anyway back to us in 25 years.

Speaker 1: 6:12

Yeah. So let's talk about we got married in 1998, august 8th of 1998. So the first five years were just as we were kind of reviewing and one of the things also they'll share. We brought our 2023 goal sheets with us and we reviewed our goals and what our plans were, and there was some things where I was like, man, I need to, I'm not doing a good job on that. There were some other things that I was like, okay, my priorities have changed this year and so that goal is not going to happen. And there are other things where it's like, okay, I've got to get to work here, so but-.

Speaker 2: 6:45

Also a plug for those goal sheets. That's something we kind of co-created this last year, so you'll be hearing more about that at the end of this year in preparation for 24. And if you haven't used our tool, it could be a really awesome assessment for you to kind of go through and look at the year and review and plan the year ahead. So we've been doing that for years, but we kind of created a tool pulling together different things that we've used through the years and a lot of people like it. So we'll be definitely. You can find it on our website and then there's a blog about it as well. But-.

Speaker 1: 7:12

I would also say if you don't have written goals for 2023, it's not too late.

Speaker 2: 7:15

It's not too late.

Speaker 1: 7:16

I'd rather see you put them down on paper in August and really reap the benefits of them for the next four months and really lay the foundation for an unbelievable 2024.

Speaker 2: 7:25

Great point.

Speaker 1: 7:26

But okay. So we got married in 1998 and let's highs and lows from the first five years and maybe lessons learned.

Speaker 2: 7:34

Yes, so during this time we were in college, graduated for college, went into the Marine Corps. You went in the Marine Corps and we were moving and I'll let you say where we've lived, because I'm pretty bad at remembering all the dates and stuff but we moved to Oregon, corvallis, oregon, and then when you went in the Marine Corps, we were still in that five years we moved to the Quantico Virginia so I would say the highs and lows.

Speaker 2: 7:55

So the highs were we found a really good college and career group with young marrieds and that kept us in that good community we were just talking about, and we played almost weekly racquetball, which was just a really fun way for us to connect on the weekends, blow off steam, and I think we just grew up together. So that was my high, and my low would be we were dirt poor and it was stressful, it was exhausting to be in school, both of us working both of us, and so it just felt like there wasn't a lot of margin.

Speaker 1: 8:24

Yeah, I think some of the other things we talked about is the high was just all that we accomplished. I graduated with my bachelor's degree, which is a big deal for me Totally awesome and a four year degree into six years, like Tommy Boy and you no, not because you weren't smart, but because you were getting your-. Taking some time off. Time off and Also swap majors a few times.

Speaker 2: 8:41

Residencies and changing.

Speaker 1: 8:42

yes, you graduated with your master's degree. You got your master's in five years. Bachelor and master's what are you laughing about?

Speaker 2: 8:51

Just because you're definitely a lot smarter than me. But when you said it took you six to get a bachelor's, and anyway, I wasn't laughing for any particular reason at all.

Speaker 1: 8:59

I don't like school but the other highs were just accomplishing graduation from officer candidate school. And then actually I mean it was amazing when we look back, because I can't believe all that we crammed into this five years, because 1998, all the way 2003 actually gets me through the basic school, supply school and all the way one year into almost a full year, into our being stationed in Okinawa, japan. So just some of the accomplishments that we accomplished in that first five years pretty amazing. I know that my dad especially had concerns about us getting married before we were done with college and just how that would potentially impact our careers. And it was a good thing. Although aloh was our first birthday together. When you joked that you were pregnant, you told me that my birthday gift was that I was gonna be a daddy. And granted, that was free right, but the cost would have been really high. And I remember that's hilarious.

Speaker 1: 9:59

I don't even remember I woke up on my birthday hey, you wanna know what your you know. And, like I, my heart stopped because I still had two years of college or one and a half years of college left. I was making very little money. And it was one of these like OK, don't say something wrong, make her cry, don't panic. And then you're like, oh, just kidding. And I was like, all right, not funny, don't ever do that again, because that would have been a blessing.

Speaker 2: 10:27

We would have made it work, but it would have. Oh my gosh, it would have been so if you're out there and you've walked through those early years, then you have a totally different story than us, because we had eight years of marriage and growing up and we got out of our school debt very quickly because we worked very hard at it as soon as we had jobs. So we were blessed to do it that direction. But I totally forgot about that, sorry, babe.

Speaker 1: 10:46

And as far as my low, I think just the obstacle is the way. So at the time it was very challenging just the finances of being making folks. When we moved to Oregon I went from making $13 an hour, which was decent money back in 1998, to $7.50. And that experience was brutal. We burned through all the money we got for our wedding very quickly and just the financial pressures of working, paying for school. We were married so we were getting zero help from our parents, which I'm totally fine with. I think that's the right way to go. But that was tough and probably the biggest lesson that we learned was actually kind of navigating family, just realizing you come to marriage with all the habits and traditions of your nuclear family, which to most of us seems normal until we come out of that, and so just getting through that was probably the biggest lesson learned. So let's move on 2003 to 2008.

Speaker 2: 11:54

Highs and lows. If you listen to this and you weren't alive yet. Yes, we feel old ones. Ok, where were we during this time? So we were in Okinawa, japan, for part of that time, and then we moved back to the States.

Speaker 1: 12:04

Yeah, it started Jobless we had by the end of that we had our first child.

Speaker 2: 12:10

Yes, so that was all the way through buying our first home and living with my parents for six months, which was definitely a challenging season for all of us, just because when you're 30 years old and you lived 8,000 miles away all by yourself for a long time and then you move back home, it's just an interesting way to navigate relationships.

Speaker 1: 12:28

And for the record, if you're not used to this yet, folks always just don't take any number that Becca throws out. Take it all with a grain of salt.

Speaker 2: 12:35

I think we're 8,000 miles.

Speaker 1: 12:38

Anyways, ages and things like that were close, but it's all about the ballpark.

Speaker 2: 12:41

And if you live with Kevin, he'll literally calculate it to the dime, the penny, the quarter of an inch, and it'll just annoy me to death, Like when you said, we've been whatever coaching or healthy, for 12 and 1 half years. I was thinking it's got to be 13. Like 2011, 2023. Ok, that's 12. I rest my case around her Math was not my strong point. All right, moving on Heisenlohs.

Speaker 1: 13:04

Yeah, so I mean 2005, 2008,. Wrapped up my active duty Marine Corps career, I got my police job, which was at the time, and I remember we were standing in the line for a cruise that we got for free.

Speaker 2: 13:19

A three day cruise.

Speaker 1: 13:20

Because we made our stupid tax mistake of purchasing a time share. But hey, once again the obstacle is the way, so but that was my childhood dream job becoming a police officer and obviously probably the highlight of that five year period ultimately was having a first child. So that's a game changer.

Speaker 2: 13:39

We love you, carson. Yes, we do, absolutely. Some of the crazy lows were just we bought our first home and it was. It took a lot of negotiation to find something that would feel like a home, because we'd been married for eight years and living in apartments, you know. It wasn't like we were trying to get a lot in our first home and we felt like we had saved and and then we did our stupid tax. Well, and I grew up in Ohio and housing in Ohio was much less expensive.

Speaker 1: 14:02

Yeah. So just to give everyone perspective, I grew up in Ohio. We knew we were going to initially land back in Oregon because that's where we joined the military from, and our agreement was I would apply for jobs in Oregon and Ohio wherever we got. I got hired first. We would settle because we wanted to be by one set of family and the law enforcement hiring process in Ohio is incredibly slow. I had I was hired before I even heard back from anyone in Ohio. I mean, it's, it just was like the Lord's will.

Speaker 1: 14:31

I guess. So, hey, I mean I'm not complaining because ultimately, you know, our life has been incredible, but where was I coming?

Speaker 2: 14:41

with this, I don't know, down some tangent. Let's move on.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Okay.

Speaker 2: 14:44

About our first home.

Speaker 1: 14:45

basically, we had money saved and it wasn't going to get us very far when we were leaving Okinawa, we started, you know, I think we'd saved $20,000 for a down payment and coming from Ohio, where you could get a heck of a house for under $200,000.

Speaker 1: 14:57

I remember, looking at you know, $200,000, setting that as the top threshold for houses in Oregon and the only thing that popped up was double-wide trailers yeah, yeah, I mean it was it was definitely it was a culture shock kind of for us, but probably I would say the the low of that season for me was all the time that we spent apart from me being in the Marine Corps. I mean, we probably spent well over a year if you combine it, and I, granted, I know there was a lot of service members who spent years apart from their family, but I definitely did not enjoy being apart from you.

Speaker 2: 15:35

Yep, and definitely the high would be having Carson. You almost miss his birth because the Marine Corps tried to recall me recall you right at the time of his birth, and, by the grace of God, you were able to stay, and so becoming a mom was oh my gosh, I'm gonna cry yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:51

It's special. It's definitely special. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing that changes your life more than becoming a parent. So, all right, 2008 to 2013. It's. It's crazy when you look at these five year blocks.

Speaker 2: 16:06

Yeah, we encourage you, if you've been married for any length of time, take it five at a time. It's pretty fun and also crazy to see what you can and which also reminds you, like right now, where we sit today, yeah, like wherever you are, if you're stuck and you're surviving and you're not thriving, or you're already thriving, like just imagine.

Speaker 2: 16:21

there's a saying that someone in our business said one time we often overestimate what we can do in one year and we underestimate what we can do in five years, and when we look at it like this, you're right in five years from now, not only will our kids have aged dramatically, we will have aged a tiny little bit, but our lives could be drastically different, and we expect them to be drastically better. I mean, we don't know exactly what the Lord has for us, but, um, you know, if nothing else we can steward the time and the relationships in the next five years.

Speaker 2: 16:49

Yeah, Um in the next five years, we actually brought on two more children Uh, austin was born in 08 and Dylan in 2010 and uh, just the joy of our lives as well to have just a full cup and feel like we had kind of finished our parenting journey. Ha ha, um, and so I would say that was definitely one of our highs. We had some good friends and we built a home.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Um well, yeah, I mean. The amazing thing about this time period is, you know, in 2008 I was two years into my law enforcement career, loving it.

Speaker 2: 17:16

Yes.

Speaker 1: 17:17

Absolutely Like this was a season time where I was working a ton of over time. I loved what I did. Uh yeah, I remember coming home you know, the first, probably year and he was like I would do this for free, like I absolutely loved it.

Speaker 2: 17:28

I thank you for not doing it for free.

Speaker 1: 17:29

And in that five year, like I literally hit the wall, um, you know, around 2011, uh, 2011,. You know, obviously one of the biggest highs for us is this is a game changer, is the decision to get healthy. Some of the people we met through, uh, that process and the decision to pay it forward and really start the business that has been absolutely been a game changer for us, like when you think about 2008 to 2013, um and 2008.

Speaker 1: 17:56

I thought I was in my dream job that I would do until I was at least 50 years old in 2013. I was retired from it and completely burned out 100% burned out of being a law enforcement officer.

Speaker 2: 18:07

So and you became a stay at home dad at 35, which we never planned on. Yeah, Our, our boys have literally been raised with you at home, working from home, available, walking them to school, picking them up from school, throwing the football um around in the afternoons and going on a few field trips, and just really being able to invest in them in the way that most dads don't have that same opportunity. And so, even though they're not feeling it right now in their teenage years like they, I hope they look back and realize, um, what a legacy you've invested in them.

Speaker 1: 18:35

Yeah, it's been amazing. So, uh, any lows from that season.

Speaker 2: 18:43

I mean we lived in an apartment for a while while I was pregnant and, uh, carson and Austin made a poop mess in the when he was watching him in the crib one time. So we had crazy adventures, I think, in parenting three little boys in four years, um, but I don't remember any other like really difficult, challenging times. I mean launching the coaching business and stepping into that was new, but I don't have a lot of recollection.

Speaker 1: 19:07

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:07

Maybe because I was brain dead at that point.

Speaker 1: 19:10

I think for me it was uh. Probably one of the biggest lows was uh just dealing with my back injury.

Speaker 2: 19:16

So I had surgery in 2007,.

Speaker 1: 19:18

but the recovery and just dealing with, you know, some ongoing problems until I lost the weight in 2011 was probably one of the biggest lows. So I remember just dealing with depression from feeling debilitated by the back injury and can definitely sympathize with people who've gone through health challenges. So, uh, 2013 to 2018, once again, an unbelievable five years, right Hyze, uh, the. The move to Arizona was just an absolute blessing for our family and, uh, you know, we experienced unbelievable business growth in that five year period. It was just mind blowing. I took some incredible trips with our kids and probably, you know, getting introduced to EV, who we eventually adopted, and just that life changing event was another, you know, high from that five year period.

Speaker 2: 20:14

I'm not sure I don't. Maybe I don't carry the lows as much as I can remember. You know the highs, but for the lows in every season for me has been loneliness. That's always been a trend that I've. Now that I've looked at my life backwards, seasons in the military have been lonely. And then, you know, coming to Arizona and not knowing very many people, I wasn't depressed about it because we had done it so many times. It's become a muscle I've practiced of like it's going to be six to nine months before I have a friend group, people I can text somewhere, I belong my own tribe. And now I look back. You know we've been here seven years and I think that God is always faithful to provide the people or to give me the ability to create the space for people. It just takes time, and so one of the downsides is of trans, of any transition, is loneliness.

Speaker 1: 20:58

Yeah, I would say. I want to say that that was might have been one of the sweetest five years periods of our life, just because the kids were younger and just more interactive.

Speaker 1: 21:10

Preteen years, and we were kind of in the honeymoon phase of me being a stay at home dad. You know, even when we lived in Oregon we did a ton of stuff together. You know bike rides. We did a lot of camping, you know, with our tent trailer back then. And then when we moved to Arizona, the joy of just you know the novelty of swimming in the pool, playing kickball in our tiny yard at the old house here in Arizona and just a lot of fun. But then towards the end of that definitely transitioned into some of the challenges of dealing with adolescent boys.

Speaker 2: 21:40

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 21:41

All right, then the last five years.

Speaker 2: 21:45

Oh man, well, we adopted EV, so that was a blessing in our life and we've begun that grand adventure of four kids. We've definitely traveled. I think this is the last five years have been a lot of cool international travel. We've been to Greece, israel, croatia, where else Cabo numerous times.

Speaker 1: 22:06

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:06

I feel like there's the family.

Speaker 1: 22:08

A couple unbelievable Africa, africa, kenya, yep.

Speaker 2: 22:12

One of the downsides I would definitely say is pandemic like 2020, and everything that's happened since then has been a huge down. Maybe not a huge down, it's been an awakening, yeah, a disappointment for sure. I think that our family navigated it better than many families just because of the way that we let our family really just feeling like we weren't going to hide, we weren't going to stay hidden and kept away from people during this time.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Yeah, I mean, we kept community going from.

Speaker 2: 22:38

We took care of our bodies. We took vitamins and supplements people recommended and basically, you know, we as a family stayed healthy. Our kids played sports, they went to school, we traveled, we spent time with people.

Speaker 1: 22:48

So we doubled down on our own. The world was weird.

Speaker 2: 22:51

But we had the best experience out of that that we could have. So that was definitely for me like a down side of that, but upside was lots of travel and fun experiences. And one of the hardest things, too, is just been parenting the teenage years. It's a lot of heartbreak. It's a lot of it challenges you as a human. I'll tell you, if you're parenting teens and you're trying to be intentional with it, it will grow your faith. But my sweet spot in that is just my relationship with the Lord just keeps getting stronger because we just cannot do it without Him and I'm becoming more and more of a mama who's a prayer warrior and I'm fighting in the supernatural more than I ever have before.

Speaker 1: 23:30

Well, and I would agree, you know the just the challenges of parenting teens, probably the biggest low points of the last five years. I mean it's hard work, but once again, we're not in this to raise happy kids, you know. We're in this to raise successful adults, and by that doesn't mean they're making a ton of money, they're doctors or lawyers. It means that they're doing what God intended for them to do, that they're really blooming and blossoming in the gifts that they were given.

Speaker 2: 24:00

So and if you are raising teens, I'll tell you, don't take a moment of the good for granted, and there will be a lot of good mixed in. So for me right now it's like I'm capturing memories and I'm hoping that you know they're just a stepping stone in the next five years to good relationship as they are adults. But you won't take it for granted. I don't think in the way that you do when they are in elementary years and things are just easier on your relationships generally.

Speaker 1: 24:22

Yeah. So, friends, thanks for listening. And if you are married, I would highly encourage you to. You know, spend some time with your spouse, do this, you don't have to wait until your anniversary. But it was really fun for us to just kind of reflect on the highs and lows and just look at those five year chunks of time and just realize that as quickly as 25 years has flown by, like we're going to be at 50 and it's going to feel like a blink of an eye. And you know the goal is to invest, prioritize your relationship with your spouse so that you can, you know, so you can finish strong together.

Speaker 2: 24:59

So thanks for listening. Love you so much, love you too, baby.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Thanks for listening to the Uncommon Freedom show. We believe freedom isn't man's invention. It was created by God. If you are enjoying this show, please give us a five star review on the platform we're listening to us on, Then subscribe and share with friends and family that you think will enjoy the show. You can connect with us at beckandkevcom for more resources to learn biblical principles, essential disciplines and the winning habits that help, once average people lead the life they want instead of accepting the life they were given.