Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast
The Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast is a simple ongoing conversation between Travis and Dawn Rosinger as they share practical ways couples can strengthen their marriage for a lifetime of love. The Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast is an opportunity for couples to be encouraged in their marriage and be encouraged to fight for love. Hosts Travis and Dawn Rosinger spend time talking about marriage topics relevant to couples in the areas of growing intimacy, conflict resolution, spiritual growth, building relational equity, utilizing clear communication, financial stability, goal planning and much more.
Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast
Episode 174 | Help! My Marriage Is On FIRE!
Someone forgets to empty the dishwasher or a disagreement breaks out over where to go out to eat and suddenly the "moment" turns into a fight that ends in threats of divorce. Can you feel the heat of a marriage that is on fire, a marriage that is ablaze with conflict and unmet expectations? How can seemingly healthy marriages allow a little spark of conflict to burn their house and their marriage down? What about you? Is your marriage on fire?
Join host, Travis and Dawn Rosinger, as they share a step by step process of how to be a first responder to your own marriage and put the fire of conflict and dissatisfaction out! Whether your marriage is actually on fire right now with the heat of disagreement or you know that it could ignite in your future, this is an episode for you and your spouse, an episode for healthy marriages and struggling marriages alike! Don't miss this one!!
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
Well, welcome to the loving the fight marriage podcast, where we are fighting for a marriage just like you. You're probably wondering who are we? Well, my name is Dawn and I'm sitting here with my husband and my co-host, travis.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, we're sitting here at our basement studio and we are having a great time. It's a good night, isn't it? Yes, should we tell them why it's a good night? I don't know if we should give it away. Here's the thing we stopped and we got a 32 ounce fountain drink, we did. Here it is. We'll let you hear the sound.
Dawn Rosinger:Yeah, there you go.
Travis Rosinger:Oh my gosh, 32 ounces of deliciousness.
Dawn Rosinger:I think you just gave away my addiction.
Travis Rosinger:I think I did.
Dawn Rosinger:I really do like diet Mountain Dew, so much so that I have a $9.99 subscription to holiday gas stations or circled case or a couple of different gas stations. Yeah, that honor this. But I can get one free pop that's what we call them here. Are they free? Yeah, per day, per day, for the whole month. So I could get 30 drinks. You know, it doesn't have to be pop, it can be coffee or whatever liquid they have available at, you know, at that store. But I always pick diet Mountain Dew.
Travis Rosinger:Crazy 30 up to 31 drinks in a month for 10 bucks. Yeah, that's a good month, that's like on the odd month like January and March, you know when there is 31 days but this month there's only what?
Dawn Rosinger:28 days or 29. So I don't get you know exactly the same amount, but yeah, but a good night, we're just hanging out and we're actually sharing this one and we're allowed to do that.
Travis Rosinger:We're married. But you're right, Don, we are hanging out and loving God, loving our family and each other, and fighting for love. And that's why we're on this episode in this podcast.
Dawn Rosinger:I just have to ask do you guys out there, do you guys share drinks? Do you share a straw? Do you share a toothbrush?
Travis Rosinger:I was just going to say that's almost like sharing a toothbrush when we go to a movie theater.
Dawn Rosinger:We share popcorn and we share a pop and we share the candy, we share everything, Right. But and then when our kids were little, we did like the family style popcorn and the family pop.
Travis Rosinger:But as long as we don't share toilet paper, that would not be okay. No, that's gross, that would be gross.
Dawn Rosinger:We're not going to go there, I'd rather just go straight into the podcast. Well, you may have heard me say this story before, but it goes great with what we want to talk to you guys about today. When I was 18 years old, I was driving my car and it overheated, so I didn't want to know what to do. So I pulled over to a gas station and they added some anti-freeze and some water and they said I was good to go. So I just kind of believed them.
Dawn Rosinger:I jumped back in my car and I was on my way, but I quickly noticed that the temperature gauge was slowly getting higher and higher when, all of a sudden, I heard a popping sound and I was instantly engulfed in smoke. At that moment I felt this intense heat on my feet and my legs and I thought for sure that I was going to die. I quickly knew I needed to get all the cars, so I slammed in the brakes, but there was nothing. So I did what the best I thought that I should do in that moment I opened up the car door and I jumped out in. Just a few moments later, I was laying in the middle of the road with severe burns all over my feet and legs, road rash on my left hip from jumping, but I was alive and I was not burning anymore.
Travis Rosinger:Crazy.
Dawn Rosinger:That is a crazy story Crazy story. Every time I tell people that story to me, it's normal because it happened to me, but they're like what happened? Honestly, it was just a freak accident, it won't happen to you. My heater core exploded. All the hot anti-freeze came inside. The smoke that was smoke was actually steam as well from the hot anti-freeze.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, it felt like your car was on fire and in a way, it kind of was. But, don, how did you become a pastor and not become a stunt woman? I know Like you should be in Hollywood movies. You jumped out of a car at 45 miles an hour, ended up with tons of gravel in your hip. You're like got this boiling hot stuff on your body. You're rolling around the road and your car goes and crashes.
Dawn Rosinger:Yeah, yeah, that's kind of everyone.
Travis Rosinger:Okay, horrible at the time. Yeah, fun to tell that story now. It really happened.
Dawn Rosinger:It's good now that the burns on my legs and my feet. Because that was probably one of the most painful things I'd ever gone through. Honestly, I have an extremely high pain tolerance because the healing from burns, especially chemical burns that were all over your legs, was horrible. But again now they're just scars. My legs are good at a good plastic surgeon, but anyways, just kind of a wild, weird story. But the reason that we tell you that story today is because we're kind of going to be talking about fire, right?
Travis Rosinger:Yeah.
Dawn Rosinger:Bernie, what does, what can fire do? Fire can burn us right and cause a lot of injuries.
Travis Rosinger:It's bad stuff if we're not careful. Man like fire is hot, fire if it's close is danger. But fire also, um, is a warning like something could be very wrong with that feeling you had in that car. I remember when I was a kid, I mean, the house was on fire, at least that's what our neighbor told us. So it's like, wow, that freaks you out and maybe should yeah, you know, I told that story recently and this week.
Dawn Rosinger:As we're just thinking about marriages and all of you that are listening, we realize that there are some of you right now that your marriages are on fire. For those of you where your marriage is, you don't need me to explain that. You know exactly what I'm talking about Because you know that that's what your marriage is at right now.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, they feel the heat. You, you see the fire, you, it's danger, right, and you're thinking Well, this isn't my house, it's not my car, it's literally my marriage and it's on fire. What am I going to do you?
Dawn Rosinger:know, there are times when your marriage is on fire and you need some immediate help, kind of like I did when I, when my legs were on fire. I needed someone to call nine and one, and they get the paramedics and need to go to the hospital. Um, but maybe with your marriage, maybe everything feels like it's out of control and your relationship seems doomed for destruction. So what do you do when your marriage is spiraling out of control and the flames of conflict and shattered expectations are just raging all around you and there's just smoke everywhere?
Travis Rosinger:Yeah that that's a bad place, that's not a good thing, and it's time for solutions. It's time to be able to dial 911 and get that help.
Dawn Rosinger:So that is the point of this episode. We want this episode to be a sort of first responder for your marriage and your own heart. We, honestly, we just want to help you.
Travis Rosinger:We do we? We so want to help and I think it's important to be able to Just stop with everybody that's listening, even looking at our own marriage, and saying, hey, is there anything that's smoking right now? Do we see little sparks flying around or flames, or is something burning? Yeah, out of control in our relationship.
Dawn Rosinger:Well, let me just throw this in there for those of you that might be tempted to not listen and turn this off right now. We just want to challenge you to keep listening, because much of what we're going to talk about May have already applied to you in your marriage, but will likely apply to you in your marriage Sometime in the near future.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, yeah, and I think what you're saying too, don, is. There's so many people that you might be listening right now. Maybe you feel like, oh, my marriage is healthy and everything's going great, but the reality is what we're about to talk about.
Travis Rosinger:Uh, there, there are so many things that just apply to all of us every day, but especially to those where their relationships are on fire, and that is, again, the title of this episode help, my marriage is on fire. So, again, as you're listening to this, maybe, though, that is you Maybe you feel that heat in your marriage, or you feel that you know that, that that kind of spark or smoke Swirling around you, and you're thinking, oh my gosh, like we can't put it out with our own personal fire extinguisher, we need help. Maybe that's why you're listening, yeah, to this podcast. Or you're about to reach out for other kinds of help, and that is the title of this episode help, my marriage is on fire. So what do you do to put out the flames and save your marriage from future Damage?
Dawn Rosinger:that's a great question, because I know we've all been at that point where we just need to call 911. So what can we do in those moments?
Travis Rosinger:Yeah and Don, you and I have experienced this before and I think the reality is, if you want to put it out, you got to first of all recognize that evil is literally launching an all-out assault On you as individuals and on your marriage as a couple, that's part of what's happening.
Dawn Rosinger:Yeah, I totally love that. I love that you want to recognize what is the source. What is the source of that fire? And oftentimes, in the beginning, it's evil.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, we're told as kids not to play with matches, but the reality is the demons of hell and and Satan himself and evil they play with matches every day and they're trying to start marriages on fire, trying to discourage you and trying to destroy you, trying to completely separate you totally so.
Travis Rosinger:Evil literally wants you to go from arguing over what to eat for supper or over who didn't put the dishes and the dishwasher to. I want a divorce. That's it. I want a divorce. And what's so weird is it did start with the dishes not being put in the dishwasher, or it did start with what to eat for supper. And these are crazy thoughts that pop up in your mind. But make no mistake about it Just because their ideas that pop up in your mind doesn't mean that they are your thoughts. In other words, what we're trying to tell you is, when evil has an all out assault on you or your marriage, it's the evil one and it's this fiery darts and he's trying to put those thoughts into your mind. And when we think a thought, we naturally think well, that's my thought, but the reality is, many times they're put there by the devil.
Dawn Rosinger:I love how you say that oftentimes, if we have that idea, that thought, it doesn't mean that those are your thoughts. And just distinguishing. Is this my thought or is this honestly the enemy evil? When we say evil, we're talking about the devil, like we believe in God and we believe in the devil, and we're talking about the devil just trying to destroy our marriages.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, and that's why in Ephesians, chapter six, here's what it says. It gives us this incredible advice that really helps us to put out the fire in our marriages. It says finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. And here's how you do it put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Isn't that interesting that it says devil's schemes? Why is it being written to us and talking about his schemes? Because he's got a strategy. He's up to no good. And then it goes on and says in addition to all this, take up the shield of faith. Why? What will it do, it says, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil?
Dawn Rosinger:one. There's that fire. That's how you can put it out man.
Travis Rosinger:It's the fire and it's the thoughts and he's shooting them at us. But how do you do that? How do you put out those flames? Certainly by faith, that shield of faith. But then it says even this take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
Travis Rosinger:When I get stupid thoughts that aren't mying, I know they're not mying, they're evil, they're from the devil, like hey, don, you ticked me off and now I just wanna move out of the house. Man, it's important to right away say but what does the word of God say and what is the word of God? We're married for life and we do this together. We don't abandon each other, and so the reality is, the evil one is the father of lies, and if he can get you to believe his lies, then he has won. He has set your house, your marriage, your car, he set your life on fire. So we also don't wanna assume that just because we're extra irritable, that, like you, don, as my spouse, you're just extra annoying and I'm just having a bad day and then that's all that's going on. Well, we need to remember that evil not only tries to hit us with lies and crazy ideas, but it's also trying to push our buttons so that we blow up at each other. You know those moments, don, when I haven't had enough to eat.
Dawn Rosinger:And I'm getting hangry. But the devil might try to push me a little bit further off the hangry edge right, yep, or on the days we're just lack of sleep or we're just extra busy or stresses come in, then that's when the devil can really come in between us and just throw those goofy thoughts or ideas into our head.
Travis Rosinger:And when you respond to my stupidity or something I'm saying or doing and you take it a step further. Sometimes that's evil just nudging us and prodding us. And that's the interesting thing is, evil doesn't sleep, it doesn't give up, it just keeps coming. And that's why we must stop and pray for God's help, individually and as couples. That's why we must stop, sometimes literally in the middle of a really petty conflict that's starting to burn out of control, and acknowledge that evil may have started the fire or added an accelerant.
Dawn Rosinger:I love that first point. Just remember, man, that we're fighting against evil, and oftentimes, when things come in, it's just evil Trying to rip us apart. So what do you do when your marriage is on fire? It's important to remember that everyone is a sinner, even you, travis, you are a sinner. Meet Don.
Travis Rosinger:Iam Thanks for that reminder, sinner.
Dawn Rosinger:You know what we all get to eat dirt on the floor begging God for forgiveness. That's the picture that Jesus gave of the man who is righteous. He got in the dirt and wouldn't even walk into the church.
Travis Rosinger:Love that story.
Dawn Rosinger:In Luke 18, 13,. It says Instead, he beat his chest and sorrow, saying oh God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner. I tell you, this sinner not the Pharisee returned home justified before God, for those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. So what does this mean? It means you're not perfect. I hate to tell you this, Travis, you're not perfect, but guess what I have to tell myself? I'm not perfect. We all need to get a lot more humble and lower ourselves. We forgot to just ask Him for forgiveness for anything we've done wrong. We need to do that today, tomorrow every single day in 10 years.
Dawn Rosinger:We need to get humble and we need to stay humble.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, it's never ending. In other words yeah, that's so good and just getting in the dirt and realizing we need to be low, god needs to be high and we need to honor other people and just get humble. I love that from Jesus.
Dawn Rosinger:So we're talking about marriages being on fire, and some of us are in that place where our marriage is on fire. So how do you put out the fire? So try this stop judging your spouse and start judging yourself. You know why is it so darn easy to see the wrong in someone else's life, but rarely see our own glaring flaws? Jesus was so clear that we should become much better at taking out the bad out of our own lives, our attitudes and behaviors, than trying to point out the little issues in other people's lives. It's really easy. I can look at you, try to say, oh yeah, you do this, you do that, you do that, and just not even look at all the things that I do wrong.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, we each have a list of the things that the other does wrong, but my list only has one thing on it, or zero things on it. Why is that?
Dawn Rosinger:You know, man, you're way worse than I am right. That's horrible, that's the attitude, but sometimes that's honestly. That's how we view each other.
Travis Rosinger:It really is yes.
Dawn Rosinger:Well, in Matthew 7, 3-5, it says why do you look at the speck of psalus in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. We have to remember these are Jesus's words here and he is using a piece of wood as a metaphor and then looking at the sawdust in someone's eye.
Dawn Rosinger:Just think of the difference in sizes and that's the comparison that he's trying to the picture that he's trying to give us, and it's so true. There's oftentimes that I can look at you and point out all the little things and think that I'm just perfect, when I just have massive plank in my own eye. I think the problem with judging your spouse all the time is that you really start to see them as your enemy. But are they? Are you my enemy? No, absolutely not. They're your friend, your lover, parent of your children, lifelong companion, fellow adventurer and trusted ally.
Dawn Rosinger:Like we're on the same team. Our spouse is not our enemy. Jesus started that piece of advice with these words do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, you know, what I think he's trying to say is, Don, if I'm maybe gonna be harsh with you as my wife and constantly nitpick and put everything you do under a microscope and judge you that harshly, Jesus is warning me. He's warning everybody else out there that's listening. Hey, if you treat your spouse like that, you're gonna be judged that way. Whether it's by your spouse in return or by God you're gonna be held to a higher standard, a higher level of accountability. It's better to just give your spouse grace and overlook it.
Dawn Rosinger:Yeah, sure, you know, sometimes I think we're just either too stressed out or maybe just over-scheduled, which can cause us to really just nitpick our spouse, and maybe or maybe we're just bored and we need to get more hobbies so that we don't make judging or nitpicking our spouse just our hobby. Like, hey, like I'm gonna find every single thing wrong with you and that's gonna be my hobby. You know, maybe we're sport, maybe we need to. You know, make sure we're occupying ourselves with more productive things than just nitpicking our spouse.
Travis Rosinger:And we do that privately. But we met couples who do that publicly, where they'll just sit there and it is like they don't have another hobby and they just rip on their spouse over and over and over again.
Dawn Rosinger:I feel like it can quickly spiral out of control too, because there can be one little thing and then that little thing can lead to other things that you just keep seeing. And, man, you just need to break that cycle.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah. So it's really all about grabbing the fire extinguisher, dialing 911 and getting the firefighters, the firemen, to come, and what we're talking about is putting the fire out in your marriage. If your marriage is on fire, how do you do that? How do you dial 911, get the fire extinguisher? Well, part of it is just agreeing to stop blaming each other, and this goes beyond judging.
Travis Rosinger:This is taking what we shouldn't be thinking about our spouses and then verbalizing it, and that's a problem. You know, sometimes we'll have a bad thought and it's probably from the devil, but we need to let it go. Instead, we cross the line and we verbalize it. So it's time to wave the white flag and decide that your language of accusing each other and blaming each other is gonna take a very long vacation. In other words, we're done with that behavior, we're done with that attitude. We're gonna pack its bag and tell blaming. It is no longer allowed in our home and in our marriage. We're gonna get rid of that and it's just okay. If I'm gonna put the fire out, I gotta stop blaming my spouse. I gotta start looking at myself.
Dawn Rosinger:And honestly just taking responsibility sometimes for your own actions.
Travis Rosinger:Yes, which is so helpful. Author Elizabeth Gilbert said this. She said you can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry.
Dawn Rosinger:Oh, that's good. Alright, travis, let's see your tongue. Yeah, how many scars do you have?
Travis Rosinger:Hopefully a lot of them yeah.
Dawn Rosinger:That's something that we still are working on. I think we need more. I think our time needs some more scars.
Travis Rosinger:We are absolutely working out. We're loving the fight, fighting for our marriage. So how do you put out the firewall? It's also remembering the love that used to have for each other when you first became a couple. And allow that to be a motivation to open up kind of the fire hydrant and pour cold water on the burning flames of your marriage. And what does that look like? It means choosing love and to think of your love and, of course, this will start to change the way you feel about your spouse. But we don't want you to stop at thinking about how much you love your spouse or how great that feeling was when you first got together. Instead, we want you to start writing them notes or sending them texts or telling them how your love for them is strong and deep and growing. Verbalize it, write it electronically, send it whatever, but share with them the things that you love the most about them, and the flames and the heat and the danger is going to disappear and your marriage is going to be restored.
Dawn Rosinger:I love that. I think there's something very powerful about just reminiscing about the past. Not only would I have a reminiscing about all the positive things, especially early on in the relationship, when we didn't see the flaws in each other. It was just, everything was romantic.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, like back when I had hair right. Yeah, I know you meant romance, but I did have hair back then. And it looked pretty darn good.
Dawn Rosinger:Well, I think this last key that we're going to give you, but probably the most important thing, is how do you put out the fire? Start praying together for one another, for your marriage and against the evil that is attacking you. I know we said this earlier, but we can't emphasize it enough. Prayer is one of the greatest ways we can help our own marriages. We can change our own hearts in the process and we can access the power of God. Prayer is just a massive dual.
Travis Rosinger:So true.
Dawn Rosinger:Powerful.
Travis Rosinger:It works.
Dawn Rosinger:Yes, we can and should pray that God would drive away all evil from our own hearts and from our relationships, but we also need to just pray to ask God to fill us with his love. God's love is the goal, the target for the kind of love that we need in our marriages. I know commentators Every morning before we leave, I feel like we just try to stop and pray. We do pray for our marriages because we know that there's an evil one Like.
Dawn Rosinger:Let's pray against the evil one we do, but then just pray for each other and just encourage each other, lift each other up.
Travis Rosinger:And we did that this morning. You, just right before you, walked out the door, you just grabbed me, hugged me and said hey, let's pray together and that's just a habit that we have, but it is so good and I think we would really encourage you as well. Get help, find a Christian counselor or pastor that you can see either in person or online, but be honest about the flaws that both of you have. Don't let any seeking of advice or help be an opportunity to kind of you know, point the finger at your spouse. Instead, make it a chance for you to grow and become a better person and a better husband and a better wife Right, yeah, absolutely All of you guys.
Dawn Rosinger:Time for us to be firefighters, right? Pull out that fire extinguisher and man, just put out the smoke, put out the fire and do some of these things that we just suggested. Now, you guys, you got to remember, when we do a podcast, we are talking to ourselves in the process. So as we are fighting for our marriage, as we're extinguishing fires, we are doing that in our own life as well. But we just so believe in you and we want to make sure that you are living your best life and just enjoying your marriage along the way.
Travis Rosinger:Yeah, and the reason why we're doing it is man, there was a fire or an explosion at a house in the national news just two days ago and there's nothing left and that's really a picture of what can happen to marriages. We don't want that to happen to our marriage. 31 years of marriage on to 32. Right, yes, and we just want to make sure that all the fires are put out and we're loving life, loving each other.
Dawn Rosinger:Right, you guys, honestly, we believe in you. You can do it. Well, we just want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Love in the Fight Marriage Podcast. Remember, you can do it. You got this. Keep loving the fight. We'll see you next time.