Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast

Episode 166 | The Great Lie: It's a Secret!

• Travis Rosinger and Dawn Rosinger

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What if you did something bad and then tried to cover it up, tried to pretend it never happened. Well, if you're human you have likely done that many times throughout your life. When we do this, we are showing that we are starting to believe The Great Lie. We fall into the trap and believe that secrets exist and can be kept. The truth is that there are no secrets and almost all secrets eventually come to light.

Join hosts Travis and Dawn Rosinger as they dig into the idea that secrets take a huge toll on relationships, on individuals, and also bring great anxiety and fear. They share ways to break free from living a life filled with coverups and spotlight key insights into how you can experience a beautiful life filled with transparency and trust. This is an episode that is sure to inspire you!!

Travis and Dawn Rosinger are the Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast Hosts and Authors of the books, Verbalosity - 7 Steps to a Verbally Generous and More Fulfilling Marriage and their newest book, Gripping -  What Matters Most | A Life and Relationships That Hold on to You

For more information about Travis and Dawn Rosinger go to Loving The Fight

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, it's that time of the week again and we are pumped to be with you. My name is Dawn and I'm sitting here with my husband, travis, and we are the hosts of the loving the fight marriage podcast.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, I'm here and I'm so glad that you guys tuned in. You know there's something special about stopping and really focusing on what matters, and that is Jesus, one another and the marriage that God has given us, the marriage that is a reflection of Jesus's love for the church. So we're so, like Don said, we are so excited to have you guys hanging out with us for this episode.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, we're going to just jump straight into this episode. The episode title is the great lie, it's a secret. And actually think about secrets. I know recently someone told me something. They're like hey, I have to tell you something, but you can't tell anyone. And immediately in my mind I'm like you mean, I can't even tell my husband. Like let's define secret here. What are the rules? What are the rules? Do you know what they are?

Travis Rosinger:

Because it seems like anybody we tell a secret to, they always tell their spouse.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, absolutely.

Travis Rosinger:

And so it's like is that a given or is that like breaking the rules? But also like you don't want to betray somebody else's trust and they're kind enough to share their secrets with you. And maybe it's because they want prayer, they want to grow the relationship or be vulnerable and we need a handbook or something to tell us exactly how to handle secrets. But this title is kind of a fun one. I mean, if you think about it, the great lie, it's a secret.

Dawn Rosinger:

What does that mean? Yeah, that's actually intriguing to me. Well, we'll unpack that a little bit, but I just wanted to share with you right now some famous secrets. Maybe you haven't thought about this, but what about Coca-Cola? Like the actual formula for how to make Coke?

Travis Rosinger:

Delicious, oh my gosh. It's like an ice cold bottle of Coca-Cola on a hot day. It's like not only does this taste amazing, but I want to know how to make it. I want to know how to make it at home.

Dawn Rosinger:

You know what? I heard that there's only two executives that actually have the secret formula to Coke Wow, like it's under lock and key. That's pretty special, that's a big secret what happens if they both pass away? Then the secret's gone At the same time. We don't want them to die.

Travis Rosinger:

We want to keep our Coca-Cola coming. Yeah, it's good stuff, it's delicious. Hopefully they've got a plan in place if that were to happen.

Dawn Rosinger:

Absolutely. You know what about the Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Travis Rosinger:

The finger licking. Good, that's funny.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right, when you said that it's kind of like that. It goes with the jingle but the finger licking good, Just like Coca-Cola. I heard that they actually have a secret recipe as well secret spices, and honestly it's guarded in a facility, they said, kind of like a treasure, like the jewels in England.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, the crown jewels. But it makes sense because Kentucky Fried Chicken is one of the most popular restaurants around the world. I mean, you'll find KFC almost anywhere in the world and it's because who doesn't like chicken? But their recipe is exceptional.

Dawn Rosinger:

And they are actually extremely particular about where this recipe is found. I think they said it's found under two feet thick concrete walls. It's in there.

Travis Rosinger:

Wow.

Dawn Rosinger:

No one's going to be able to get in there.

Travis Rosinger:

I'm not getting through it, no, and I get hangry. I don't know anything, but I'm not going to make it. And why are we talking about KFC or Coca-Cola? Because we're talking about secrets in this episode. And there are some famous secrets out there.

Dawn Rosinger:

There are. What about one more? How about the recipe to Hershey's chocolate, the Hershey's chocolate bar. We went to Hershey Pennsylvania.

Travis Rosinger:

We did.

Dawn Rosinger:

We could smell a chocolate in the air.

Travis Rosinger:

We could, but hold on a second. We almost died on our way into Hershey Pennsylvania, not Illinois. I wonder if there's a Hershey Illinois. Yeah, we were flying into Hershey Pennsylvania and we were on one of those planes where there's only like 12 or 14 people.

Dawn Rosinger:

There's a prop plane.

Travis Rosinger:

And all we hit was turbulence. I mean it was crazy. I thought we were going to die like 40 times.

Dawn Rosinger:

It was kind of like a roller coaster ride, but after a while you wanted to get off and you couldn't get off. I know the Hershey bar secret actually has been a secret for over a hundred years.

Travis Rosinger:

That's a long time.

Dawn Rosinger:

I don't know how people work in factories like that. I suppose only a few people have the recipes but like and not want to share it or want to make it at home. I mean, when someone makes something you know and a potluck I'm like, can I have the recipe? Like, I want the recipe to something good. Well, who doesn't like Hershey's chocolate?

Travis Rosinger:

I know, but think about it. Think of the residents in Hershey, pennsylvania. I mean, every day they open their windows to their house and they're tortured, right. The amazing, delicious smell of Hershey's chocolate and they don't know how to make it. It's a secret.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, obviously we're talking about food secrets and other secrets that most people want to know. But this episode is going to be similar but not exactly to deal with food.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, different kind of secret, the kind of secrets that not corporations or, you know, not the food scientists somewhere keep. But we are talking today about secrets that we humans keep, and really it has a lot to do with our dark side. I've read a few books on that concept and it's fascinating, because I mean, you read the Bible, the ultimate book, and it talks all about how we, as humans, have dark sides. And so where does this idea of covering up a secret come from? I mean, think about it when was the first secret born and why?

Dawn Rosinger:

Why was it covered up? Why did it become a secret? Who told that first secret or kept that first secret? I know.

Travis Rosinger:

And of course you know, we know that sin was birthed in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. When they sinned, they felt ashamed. And of course we know that they covered their nakedness with fig trees or fig leaves. I should say but that's not. I don't think where the real first secret came from. Somebody could argue that that's what it was, but I think it came very quickly after that, in Genesis, chapter 4, verse 8, it says now Cain said to his brother Abel let's go out to the field. He was about to do something horrific. And it says while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and he killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain where is your brother Abel? I don't know. He replied Am I my brother's keeper? The Lord said what have you done? Listen? Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, that's a crazy secret.

Travis Rosinger:

It's awful, it's like the worst kind of secret anybody could have.

Travis Rosinger:

And it was obvious that not only had evil slipped into his heart, god had warned Cain about that, but he wanted to go on as if, even though after he had done this vile, horrible, evil thing, that it had never happened.

Travis Rosinger:

And that's often what we try to do with our secrets is we're pretending, we're pretending, like little three and four year olds do Don, and they just are goofing off, pretending, growing their ability to think their brains, but we as humans get in touch with our dark side, we give them to evil and then we cover it up. And so I think it's fascinating. It says that his brother's blood was crying out to God from the ground, and I'm assuming he dug a hole and put him into the ground and covered it up, and so it just brings up some really interesting thoughts. So we know that Cain had from this passage he had killed his brother and likely buried his brother, like I just said, in the same ground that he was on all the time. I believe he was a farmer, but he also again had this horrible thing in his recent past that he was trying to avoid, and so that's what sin does.

Dawn Rosinger:

It's in you.

Travis Rosinger:

Don. It's in me, it's in all of us. That's why we need Jesus. Sin and the human heart causes us to naturally want to do wrong, and then, when we do, we feel guilty, we feel awful, we feel ashamed. And so what do we do? We try to cover it up, and we're all drifting towards keeping our dark side a secret. We're all naturally, because of our sinful nature, we're drifting away from God, and so, without God's invited intervention, I mean we need his help, we absolutely need his help, and we need to be able to invite him into our sinful hearts on a regular basis. If we don't invite God into our hearts on a regular basis, we're left with secrets that feed the monsters of our desires.

Dawn Rosinger:

I'm patient to want to just keep those secrets from what we have just done. That was not Right.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, totally, and that's what God was warning Cain about. He says sin is crouching at your door. It was a monster he was talking about, like a huge animal, and he said to Cain you must master it. So we might not have murder in our hearts like Cain, but we often hide other things that we wouldn't want others, and especially our spouse, to know.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right, you know, I feel like I can think of so many different stories that have come to my mind with other people coming to us or, you know, even like little things or funny things. Like you know, someone is shopping too much and they have all of the you know, the boxes and the clothes sent to their work.

Travis Rosinger:

So their spouse doesn't know? Or how about? How about all the cartons of french fries that are just like hidden, tucked in the little compartments all over in their car? And they don't want their spouse to know.

Dawn Rosinger:

Or, honestly, I know of other bigger ones, just like romantic interests that someone may have for someone else. I actually talked to a lady one time. She had this romantic interest and I'm like get away, like stay as far away from this person as you can, and I tried to. You know, that's just a horrible. Tell your husband. Tell your husband like what you're feeling right now.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and I love that you say that, because you were just talking to somebody yesterday about love and how love is blind and sometimes, if we're not careful, those romantic interests start to blind our judgment.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right, absolutely, you know. I also know somebody who they were struggling a little bit with debt and they had way more credit card debt than their spouse ever knew and they had the bill sent to someone else's house. So the spouse didn't even know that this was a part of their marriage. So these are just different examples of secrets that couple, may you know, may keep from each other. But it's interesting because I think it's more common than we think. A recent Indiana university study found that 90% of people keep secrets about purchases from their loved ones, even if they don't believe the loved one would be upset. So, honestly, they're 90%, that is a huge percent of people who keep secrets.

Travis Rosinger:

That's crazy. It's like I'm like so many people are keeping secrets and they just don't even have a clue sometimes how their loved one's going to react. Or some of them think, oh, they wouldn't even care, but they still keep the secret, and I think that really again points back to our sinful nature that Adam and Eve gave us.

Dawn Rosinger:

You know it, beyond the romantic interests that people may have, our money and discretion, there's also past hurts that are unresolved. There's annoying habits that bug us, but we're not willing to just talk about it and say, hey, that's irritating to me.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, we let them faster, we let them just get, and then we blow up.

Dawn Rosinger:

There may be future plans that maybe your spouse doesn't fully know about. You've already began, you know, planning or an addictive behavior. Something small, maybe it's sort of small, and now it's an addictive behavior and just not willing to share how bad the addiction is. Well, according to Dr Brett Sember she writes research found that keeping secrets in a relationship results in the person with the secrets having decreased relationship satisfaction and well-being. Physical and mental health are directly impacted in this situation. I can totally see why that would affect your relationship and everything.

Travis Rosinger:

You just wouldn't necessarily trust each other Tons of stress and I wonder, stress and anxiety for the person that's keeping the secret. But I wonder if that just somehow sends this under-the-radar message to the spouse that's in the dark, that doesn't have the secret, and they start to feel that coldness that you're talking about.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right, I would definitely feel very insecure. If that was, I was at a point where I felt like you were just keeping a lot of secrets from me. Well, dr Brett goes on to write this. She says when one harbors a secret, it often becomes a heavy burden weighing on one's conscience and creating a barrier between oneself and their partner. This emotional distance can lead to feelings of isolation, even when in the company of the very person one cares about.

Dawn Rosinger:

So, man, just this loneliness, this isolation that you may feel because a spouse may be keeping a secret for you.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and that is the big lie. Right, there are no secrets. They don't exist. But when we try to have one, when we try to dig up our own piece of dirt and bury our little secrets in there and hope that kind of like Cain, that the people around us don't see them, it's a huge wedge. It causes this wedge in the marriage and it's not what God intended. God wants the man and the woman and the husband and wife to be one flesh and that secret tries to separate them into two flesh. Well, in the Old Testament there's King David, and he is such a cool guy because he's just down to earth, real, he just lets it fly. When he's angry, you know, at God, he just shouts it out.

Dawn Rosinger:

I love reading the book of Psalms. It's therapeutic isn't it.

Travis Rosinger:

You don't even have to pay a therapist. You just read King David. But when he's sad he just says it like it is. But King David messed up in the Old Testament. He messed up bad and many of you know this story. But he ended up having an affair with a married woman and then he got her husband killed so that he could have her the rest of his life and she got pregnant and they lost the baby. I mean, it was just a horrible thing, but he had her husband killed.

Travis Rosinger:

Why To dig a hole in the ground, just like Cain, and to bury his sin, to cover up his secret? And it backfired against him and he learned a big lesson from it. God came to him through a prophet and the prophet warned him. And man, he just he went to hell and back to pay for what he did. But really the moral of this history is you can't hide anything from God. Just like Cain, you can't hide anything.

Travis Rosinger:

And that's when David's heart starts to turn and he starts to practice a love for a thing called transparency.

Travis Rosinger:

And that's really one of our greatest weapons against secrets Don for you to always know where I'm at, for me to not hide money or do weird things with money or cover up my time. Like you know, I'm doing something with my time, but I'm not letting you know or having relationships or conversations with other women that you don't know about, women that I might suddenly have romantic feelings for if I were to start having private conversations with them. And so just being transparent and just saying hey to your husband, you can be a part of every square inch of my heart and my life and saying that to your wife as well. So David says these powerful words it's a prayer actually, as he's really coming onto this horrible life, or this moment in his life, I should say, of secrecy or covering up. And so in Psalms 139, he says this. He says search me, god, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Dawn Rosinger:

Wow, that's so good. I love this verse. I love it because I honestly there's times that I'm just sitting in my day and I'm like man, did I do something wrong? Or sometimes you wonder did I say that sarcastically or was there something better in my heart, as I maybe responded? I always ask God God search me and know my heart Like God knows.

Travis Rosinger:

He does, and I think what's really cool is and you've kind of nailed it, don is he sets the example of what we need to be doing, like you just said, daily in our lives. But did you notice? He said the word me four times. This isn't a prayer about pointing the finger at other people that might be doing things wrong in life. No, he is literally pointing the finger at himself and he's doing business with God.

Dawn Rosinger:

He's taking responsibility. He really is. That's exactly what he's doing.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and he's fiercely, fiercely fighting against darkness and secret and opening his heart in the biggest way of transparency. You got to start with God, and that's what he's doing. I mean, this is a prayer that we all should be praying all the time. Now there's something unique about this chapter, though. It's just really kind of crazy because he ended this chapter with this prayer, but ironically, that's not how this chapter starts this.

Travis Rosinger:

You know Psalm 139, he starts instead with a statement about God that says God has already searched his heart, and I think that's interesting that he says that, even though he ends, he's like you know. He starts hey, god searched my heart, and then he says okay, but search my heart again, god, and I love his posture. But listen how he starts this. He says in verse one of 139, you have searched me, lord, and you know me, you know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. What is David doing? He's tearing down the veil, this veil that we all have inside of us to believe. We convince ourselves it's self deception that somehow there are secrets or that we can keep something bad that we've done, or we're thinking about a secret. And again, that's the big lie.

Dawn Rosinger:

There are no secrets. God sees everything and knows everything, even the motives of our heart.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, that's why he's saying you perceive my thoughts from afar and God has searched us out. And we need to remember that and then be like what he's doing and that is, get on our knees and say, okay, you already know me, you already searched me. Now I'm gonna get honest about it. You know, you know all my stuff, god, and I'm gonna ask you to make it right inside of me. And again, four times he says that. Such a cool passage.

Dawn Rosinger:

It's such a good thing that we can learn from and model after. I actually found this quote and I couldn't find who wrote it, but I thought it was very fascinating. It went well with this episode and it was this keeping secrets from someone is no different than lying to them. It's still dishonest.

Travis Rosinger:

It really is, so I mean you're keeping a secret.

Dawn Rosinger:

Really you are lying to them because you're just being dishonest and that's lying.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, it's like two parallel realities. You're pretending to be one person, but really there's this other side of you that they're not aware of. You're right, it's deception.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, so how can we keep, you know, keeping secrets out of our marriage, out of our relationships? What are some action steps that we can take? Well, first, I think we just need to admit that secrets are a human invention that don't exist. Like there is no such thing as secrets, we, especially between a husband and a wife, there are not secrets.

Travis Rosinger:

They're gone, god knows them anyway.

Dawn Rosinger:

And also, next, we need to need to understand that secrets cause stress and anxiety by having to keep them and remembering those exact details. It's something that hurts our spouse and also it just hurts ourselves. To me, it would cause, you know, I would feel like I couldn't trust you, I would feel like there would be insecurity that would rise up, like I mean, it would just totally affect our marriage.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, it destroys quality of life is what it does in quality of relationship.

Dawn Rosinger:

Another action step is that be a person with a spiritually clean closet. You know, be like David, like, search my heart, Search me, oh God, be a person like David. The next one is be committed to staying brutally honest with your spouse. This can get harder, tricky sometimes, I mean, even when it comes to clothing. I mean we just, you know, had church a couple extra services this last week and we were trying on clothes for each other.

Travis Rosinger:

We had like 14 outfits out.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yes, there's so many different services, we didn't want to wear the same thing. And so I'm like what do you think of this? What do you think of that? And after a while, I'm like should I tell them that that makes them like a little bit wider, or should I tell them, no, that looks great. Should I be brutally honest? And I honestly want you to be brutally honest with me. So be committed to staying brutally honest with your spouse and honestly. Lastly, since secrets aren't really secret, be a person or a spouse who is always asking God to remove anything offensive. Sometimes, man, there's just things in our heart that we may not see, but when we go to God and say, god, search my heart, he will reveal things to us, and it's great. I think it's a great way to start and, honestly, the best way to have a marriage.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, david says search me, God, and know my heart, test me, know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Dawn Rosinger:

That's what we want for all of you listening.

Travis Rosinger:

Don, that's what I know you and I want for each other, for our marriage. We want that way everlasting.

Dawn Rosinger:

I don't know what it is, but I bet it's an amazing place, a destination.

Travis Rosinger:

We're headed there, but it takes that fierce willingness to be transparent.

Dawn Rosinger:

I do have one question, though, travis. So someone calls me and tells me that they're pregnant and they're going to have a baby. Am I allowed to tell you, Like is that?

Travis Rosinger:

okay. Is that a secret that I can keep from you, or?

Dawn Rosinger:

is that a secret that I share?

Travis Rosinger:

Anyways, that's just like I say no, no, don't tell me. Or like if they just got engaged.

Dawn Rosinger:

Hey, can I tell you that or not?

Travis Rosinger:

I say no, then it's awkward later on. Those are those great areas like huh, should I?

Dawn Rosinger:

share the secret. But anyways, again you guys, we just wanted to encourage you with this. Don't believe the great lie and the great lies. It's a secret, because there are no secrets. Well, we just want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Loving the Fight Marriage Podcast. Remember, you can do it. You got this. Keep loving the fight. We'll see you next time.