Ep. 262: Young Marriage Under Pressure

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the indoubt podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week, we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences, and God’s word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt. This is Daniel Markin, and today I have the opportunity to be chatting with Sharol Josephson. She works with Family Life Canada, and on our discussion we have a really interesting talk about marriage, and young couples, what that looks like in a pandemic. Sharol and her husband, Neil have been working with couples mostly, almost entirely through Zoom, so their ministry has been across Canada. And so, they have different insights from what it’s like to be married in the pandemic, some of the cracks that have shown. But ultimately, our discussion is how to have a healthy and thriving marriage as a young person, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt. My name is Daniel Markin, and today I’m joined by the one and only Sharol Josephson. Sharol, how are you?

Sharol Josephson:

I’m great, actually. Thanks, Daniel. Good to talk to you again.

Daniel Markin:

It is good to talk to you again. Our paths have crossed a couple times, but before I get into some of these stories, I just want you to tell us, tell me, what you’re doing these days, what ministry you’re involved with.

Sharol Josephson:

Sure. Well, I’m married to Neil, and together we lead Family Life Canada, which is a ministry of Power to Change, used to be Campus Crusade for Christ. And we live in Fort Langley, we have two sons, two daughters in law and four great grandkids, which is a lot of our life. And typically, when we’re not in a pandemic, we spend most of our time traveling across the country, coaching couples and coaching churches on how to coach couples. And we actually love, love, love, love what we do.

Daniel Markin:

And is that couples who are dating, engaged, married? Is it everything in between?

Sharol Josephson:

Yeah, all of the above. I would say we focus less on dating couples, and more on couples who are either about to get married or are married. But we’re learning as we help couples, we’re learning that a lot of the roots of some of the issues that they’re dealing with are back in their dating patterns. And so, as we’re trying to help couples, we have gone upstream quite a bit, and we are working more with younger people as they’re dating, and forming their ideas of what marriage can be.

Daniel Markin:

Do you find that the ideas of what marriage is, are pretty all over the map these days?

Sharol Josephson:

Oh my goodness. Our culture is so crazy, never has marriage been so denigrated in our culture, but at the same time so elevated. It’s just an odd moment, I think, where we have such high expectations for marriage. We think it’s… I don’t know if you’ve ever read any Esther Perel, but she says, “We expect one person, our spouse, to do everything that we used to expect an entire network of people to do.” Our counselor, and our sister, we expect our spouse to be everything. Now we just have super high expectations for this marriage relationship.

Sharol Josephson:

But at the same time, we’re quick to bail on it, because those expectations rarely come to be. So, I think it’s a very interesting time. And I think for those of us who love doing what we do, I think we have two things we have to go after: one is to capture how good marriage can be. Those of us who have good marriages, we tend to hide it under a bushel, so to speak. We should be letting that shine. But we also need to be speaking against this idealized view of marriage, and by acknowledging that it’s a challenge. Two becoming one is not an easy enterprise.

Daniel Markin:

It’s not, and I would just completely agree with you. So, I’m newly married. My wife and I, Elise and I have been married, we got married just before the pandemic. And the one thing that we were… I mean, when you’re planning a wedding and you’re looking towards marriage, I think we were engaged at this point, there’s so much stress, and you kind of forget all of, some of the joy. And we talked to people who would be just newly married, and the word that they kept saying was, sanctifying. “It’s so sanctifying, it’s so hard, it’s such an adjustment.” And so, we’re hearing this from all of our newly married friends.

Daniel Markin:

And it was only like a few weeks before getting married, we had other friends who we sat down, we were having pizza with them. And they basically said, “Guys, don’t forget that marriage is a lot of fun.” And they said, “It has those moments, and the highs are much higher and the lows are much lower, but it’s so much fun.” And that has definitely been the case for us. And we got married right before a pandemic, so I like to call it our extended honeymoon, where it’s been it’s been a lot of fun. How does, I guess these days there’s COVID, but you guys run conferences now with Family Life, correct? And then do you do little retreats as well, where you can do marriage coaching?

Sharol Josephson:

Yeah. Mostly what Neil and I are involved in, are the big conferences across the country, which of course in COVID, switched online. And actually, it’s kind of amazing, Daniel. The reach of Family Life grew exponentially over COVID, not just across Caanda. So we’re Family Life Canada, but boy, we’ve been able to reach people around the world, and it’s been such a joy. Anyway, we also have a staff of about 30 people, and so a lot of our role is equipping our staff, to equip the people that we call home builders. So, we have about 5,000 people across the country who have signed up and said, “I want to do something to help the marriages around me. What can I do?” I love to think that everything’s multiplying, so our staff is coaching and equipping these home builders, home builders are reaching out and leading small group studies, or mentoring, leading their marriage ministries in their churches. And so, this is all kind of multiplying, and I feel like Neil’s and my role is to just keep the motor running.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Well, and it sounds like the motor has to speed up these days, especially with, you’re right, there’s so much engagement online. So, as you are chatting with people and working through, leading people to have stronger marriages, leading them to become home builders, what is the most exciting part of that, of that whole journey for you guys?

Sharol Josephson:

Well, I think it’s like any teacher. I think when you see the light bulb come on, I think that’s super fun. Mentoring is my very favorite thing to do. Neil and I, the public thing we do is teaching, but my favorite thing is just couple on couple mentoring, and I just love intertwining our lives with others, and I love asking questions, and helping guide people towards their own answers. So, that’s my favorite thing to do. But I think as a Christ follower, I think the sense of being able to participate with God, and what God wants to do in people’s lives. I always say when I’m mentoring, I’m listening with one ear to the couple, and one year to the Holy Spirit, and really trying to discern on their behalf, the question to ask and where to guide them. I just think anytime we get to partner with God in God’s work, kingdom work on this planet, we should consider ourselves blessed, and I feel abundantly blessed in what we do.

Daniel Markin:

Absolutely. What would you say then, is the most heartbreaking piece of your work?

Sharol Josephson:

Well, I think two things actually, Daniel. I think that when I see couples in trouble, and I know that it was preventable if they had a few better role models in their life, if somebody had helped them, intervened a little earlier while the cracks were still cracks and not chasms, I think that breaks my heart, because it’s so preventable. The other thing that breaks my heart, is when couples find themselves in trouble and one is willing to work on it, and the other one isn’t. That just makes me so, so, so sad, because it feels like, oh my goodness you guys, you could pull this together if you could both get on the same page, lean in a little bit.

Sharol Josephson:

And then the other thing is when people don’t access the resources that are available to them. As Christ followers, we have access to some pretty amazing resources. The Holy Spirit, we have the gifts of the spirit, we have access to so many spiritual resources that we never tap into. So, that’s the third thing, is when Christ followers don’t actually access what God wants to give us.

Daniel Markin:

Definitely. Let me ask you this. So, pandemic hits. 2020, it’s March, and we began to hear lots of stories of lots of different marriages that were now quote unquote, on the rocks, that there was cracks happening. I think we saw statistics that there was difficulty in marriages going on instances of abuse. And that’s of course not across the board everywhere, but it sounded like, you picked up on that word, these cracks were happening. And what cracks have you noticed? And maybe some of them have resolved now, and maybe some of them are still around, but what cracks were most pronounced?

Sharol Josephson:

Yeah. I think the things that come to surface under pressure, are the things that are sometimes buried a few layers down. So, obviously there’s always the communication and conflict management, and people’s emotional connection and our sexual intimacy, these are perennial issues in marriages. I think under pressure, they become more elevated, and escalated, and more obvious sometimes. Sometimes we can layer over some of those things with activities, or busy-ness, or travel or vacations, we can layer them over, so that we don’t feel the pain of them. We haven’t been able to layer over in the pandemic, but I think these are the typical cracks. But I think even deeper, there’s some things about self-esteem issues, I think family of origin stuff, we’ve heard a lot of that stuff coming up. I think as people start to reevaluate their priorities, and maybe their lives, some of this stuff comes to the surface, and I think we’ve had more time to think about them too.

Daniel Markin:

Right. When you say family of origin, what do you mean by that?

Sharol Josephson:

The home you grew up in. Sometimes it’s a mom and a dad, siblings, sometimes it’s two families if your parents were divorced, but whatever your family of origin is, it profoundly shapes who we are and how we do relationship. And I think sometimes we’re unaware of that, until we’re under pressure, and then those patterns start to evolve a lot.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Maybe patterns or expectations, that based on… They’re like, “Oh, that’s how marriage looks.” And so, the one side just begins to act out how they saw their parents married, and the other side’s acting out how they saw their parents married, or not married, and those two things come into conflict. Is that right?

Sharol Josephson:

Totally, exactly right. I think when you become parents yourself, some of the issues with your own parents come to the surface. And I just think the pandemic seems to have just escalated those kinds of processes, that are human and natural, but I think everything’s been amped up. And we’ve had no place, or very few places for us to explore those things. So, that’s one of the cracks. I should tell you that anecdotally, I a hundred percent agree with you. Couples have really struggled, and some of them, more than cracks have shown, some of them have had earthquakes.

Sharol Josephson:

I think about one couple that called us and said they were faithfully listening to our weekly webinar, but a week before the lockdown hit, he disclosed that he was having an affair, and a week later they go into lockdown. So, this poor couple, the world has just gone upside down, their world has gone upside down and they’re trying to navigate this. And to their credit, they dug in, they’ve they’ve worked on it, they’ve done really, really well. But some people weren’t just dealing with cracks, they were dealing with like I said, earthquakes. But I would say that empirically though, there have been a couple of studies recently, that have shown that more marriages actually did better than did worse during the pandemic.

Daniel Markin:

That’s great to hear.

Sharol Josephson:

Yes, I know.

Daniel Markin:

That’s really good to hear.

Sharol Josephson:

I don’t want to diminish the pain for those couples who really had a hard time, I don’t want to diminish that, but I think it’s not all doom and gloom. The one US study I read said that 70% of the people said that their marriage has either stayed the same or improved, only 30% said that it had gotten worse. And a UK study indicated that twice as many couples had improved their marriage, as had felt like it had worsened over… So, there’s some really good things about the pandemic as well.

Daniel Markin:

No kidding. And even just from listening to secular media, and sports podcasts that I tune into, it’s interesting to hear these families who are at home with kids, and they’ve actually taken the pandemic to really prioritize spending time with family. And them talking about, “Hey, it’s time to dig in, to actually really take an interest in my kid’s life, to build a firmer foundation.” And that has actually been very refreshing to hear from a secular perspective, rather than people just saying, “Oh, this is hard. I’m going to hit the eject button and get out of here.”

Daniel Markin:

Which I want to just briefly talk about, because when we approach the topic of divorce, separation, remarriage, that’s a huge topic, but I think a lot of Christians, we often don’t really have a good place where to begin thinking or landing on that. Do you have any insight into that topic? We don’t need to hear a ton, this subject would take a lot of time. We could do a whole episode on that. But you work with marriage, and when you’re counseling couples, you’re trying to counsel them towards actually staying married, right? So, can you explain, just a little bit of insights into there briefly?

Sharol Josephson:

Yeah. It’s taken, people who are smarter theologically than me, they’ll talk about this for months. But where I’ve landed is this: I believe the Bible is true, and I believe the Bible when it says God hates divorce. And I used to think that God hated divorce, because in some way it sort of offended him that we weren’t living into the picture of marriage that he designed. And that may still be true, but I think where I’ve landed now is no, God hates divorce because divorce breaks people’s heart. In my own extended family, but just the couples that we talk to, the wreckage, and the pain and the… So, God hates divorce, I hate divorce. People who have been divorced probably hate divorce more than all of us.

Sharol Josephson:

And I think that God hates, and by the way, God doesn’t just hate divorce. God hates other things clearly in the Bible, he hates lying, he hates haughtiness, he hates when we sow discord, he hates when we speak ill of other people, he hates when we deliberately do wrong things, when we harm the innocent, God hates a lot of things. But all of these things he hates are because they harm us. And so, when God hates divorce, he hates it because he hates what it does to people he loves. And so, I know there’s more theological answers to that, but that’s where I’ve landed, which is why everything we do in Family Life, is trying to help couples where they’re at, whatever condition they’re in. And by the way, we hang out a lot with couples who have great marriages. It’s not just [crosstalk 00:16:20] in trouble, but everything we do is designed to help couples live into what marriage can be.

Sharol Josephson:

I know there are times when couples have to separate for physical safety reasons, emotional safety reasons, I get that. We’re human, we’re flawed human beings. And I think we’ve abused the sanctity of marriage sometimes, and we’ve let people get away with stuff under that banner, that’s sinful, and I think we’ve been wrong to do that. I love what Gary Thomas says, he said, he might have been quoting somebody else, but I just love Gary. So he said, “Every divorce is the result of sin, but not every divorce is sinful.” Let’s be honest, when there’s divorce it’s because we’ve not been able to be good to each other, and so there is sin there. And so, I guess my view of divorce and remarriage, is that it’s a sin like other sins, that we can confess and be forgiven for, and then we can move into a new relationship where we honor God’s covenant.

Sharol Josephson:

And so, I’m pretty practical about it, pretty pragmatic. Quite frankly, the people we coach and help are married, or they consider themselves married, some of them are in common law marriages. So, I don’t really care if it’s their first marriage or their fifth marriage, I’m still going to help. I’m still going to help you live into what I think, and believe God designed marriage to be.

Daniel Markin:

Absolutely. So, let’s talk about young couples. Explain, what has been some of the highlights of working with young couples, and what are some of the things that you are encouraged by, some of the things that you’ve been noticing?

Sharol Josephson:

Oh, my. it’s fun to watch young couples. And I would just caution, for couples who have had a really good time in the pandemic, I’ve heard couples say, “We’ve survived this, we can face anything.” And I would suggest humbly, that that may not be the case. Because we’ve been really living in a bit of a bubble, and it’s sort of like summer camp romances, in a sense we’ve been living a summer camp romance, some of us for a year. Just totally focused on that relationship, totally invested in, and no other distractions. And so, I think I would say to those of you that are just thinking you’re cruising from here on out, don’t be surprised if you have some more challenges. But for those couples, who have really struggled, I think there’s a lot of things at play.

Sharol Josephson:

First of all, I think if you’re unaware of some of your differences, whenever new couples hit their differences, there’s going to be some friction. But when you hate your differences in a pandemic, when there are so many other layers of stress and anxiety, and you’ve got kids at home, and sometimes if you have kids, you’re trying to figure out how to manage that, and work from home. And I think the dynamics for couples have been so complicated. I think the way you handle stress has really shown up, the different way people handle stress. We’ve known couples who, the way one of them handles stress is to take control, so they try to control what they can. So, they clean the house and purge the closets, and re-grout the bathtub and organize all their photos, because they can’t control what’s going on in the world, so they’re darn well going to control what’s in their house.

Sharol Josephson:

Other partners sort of, doom scrolling, or at a philosophical level processing all that, like what’s going on in the world? And so, they respond to stress in really different ways, and I think it’s led to a lot of misunderstanding with couples. I think some people are more fearful, and that’s created stress in relationships, like when we had an option, how much masking? Do our kids go to school, do our kids play with… Do we see other people? Do we see your parents, do we see my parents? It’s created all sorts of layers for these young couples, who I think have been forced to navigate things that might not have shown up so quickly in their relationship.

Daniel Markin:

And that has to do a lot with, I think proximity too. In some ways, it is unusual for couples to spend every moment together. Because if you divide up your day, eight hours of your 24 hours is sleeping, and so obviously you’re with each other, but you’re asleep. Then eight hours of your day is at work, and so for the average couple, there might be eight hours together, but if you factor in commutes, maybe there’s like six hours together. So, how has proximity played into all of this?

Sharol Josephson:

Oh, huge. I think little things become big.

Daniel Markin:

What are some examples?

Sharol Josephson:

Well, he doesn’t load the dishwasher the correct way, which is a tiny little thing. But when your whole world has shrunken down to your house and your kitchen, it feels like a bigger thing. So, stupid little things, I think, can get blown out of proportion. And never before in marriage ministry, have we ever counseled couples as much as we have in the last year, to spend less time together. I think this is the only time we’ve ever done it. And we keep telling couples, “You need a little bit of air in your relationship.” Fires need oxygen, need negative space in order to burn, and I think relationships need a little bit of oxygen, a little bit of negative space in order to be at their best too. And I think it’s been hard to get time alone and space, but I think the couples who have tried to develop a little bit of separation from each other, have done better.

Daniel Markin:

That’s interesting, because if it feels antithetical, it feels opposite to what you should be doing in a marriage. But I think your illustration about the fire is right. Yeah, you need some oxygen. What are some ways practically, that you could suggest to some of our listeners, in ways to create some of that space?

Sharol Josephson:

Oh, our options are limited, but go out for walks. What Neil and I did one day, it was raining, and I said, “You know what? I just need some space.” So we actually said, we have a two-story house, “One floor is yours, one floor is mine, and let’s meet at dinner time and just spend the whole day separated by a floor.” So, we kind of developed false ways of creating space, but I think there’s something at play here. Our marriages are supposed to be interdependent, but we’re not supposed to be codependent, and I think it’s pretty easy in a pandemic to become codependent. We don’t have the perspective that our network can bring sometimes, so our problems can look bigger than they are when we’ve gotten the perspective.

Sharol Josephson:

I think an interesting thing that younger couples have bumped into, is things in and around their sexual life. I think the expectation was with all this time together, there would be way more sex, and the stats don’t bear that out. Matter of fact, many couple surveys have indicated we’ve been having less sex as married couples during the pandemic. And so, I think there’s a dynamic there too. It’s hard to have chemistry and attraction when there’s no space. And so, I think that’s a factor. I think it depends on your personality too. I’m an introvert, so I didn’t even notice the pandemic for like three months. I was fine. My husband’s a raging extrovert, he noticed it in three hours, “Where are all the people?” So, I think the differences in personalities dictate a little bit. I need more space, I need more solitude as a person, but I just think generally, relationships are healthier when they have a little bit of independence as well.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. I think that’s a really unique point. Because I traditionally would associate a little bit of separation means, uh oh, the two people need to cool down a bit, right? Uh oh, there’s some tension, go let that diffuse a bit. But it’s interesting that that can be done in a really healthy way, which I’m sure might be a healthy thing for a lot of couples to actually begin to explore. And that again, doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It just means that you might have different interests that you also want to explore. Maybe there’s certain movies Neil really likes to watch, like space movies or something. He wants to watch Star Wars and you’re like, “No, thank you. That would actually drain me.” But it would be an opportunity for you to go watch a rom com or something, right? There’s different interests that you can both enjoy, and I guess there’s some push and pull in that way.

Daniel Markin:

So Sharol, as we kind of just come in for a landing here, I really appreciate your time. What is one thing that you would leave our listeners, young couples, young married couples with, going into 2021? What’s one word of advice?

Sharol Josephson:

I would say, be very thoughtful about this COVID experience. Early on in COVID, I heard God say to me, “Don’t miss this, Sharol. Don’t miss it.” And I took that to mean, “Don’t miss what I have for you in this season.” And so, that’s what I would pass on to couples, is don’t miss what we’ve experienced, and be really intentional about articulating, what have you learned about yourself and about your marriage? Have the cracks shown up? And I would say, be very intentional about how you want to live your lives going forward. I think a lot of families, a lot of couples have realized, we don’t have to ride the same train that we were riding. We get more say about how we live our lives than we might have expected, and I think we’ve learned that.

Sharol Josephson:

So, I would tell couples to be very intentional about what you’ve learned, and how you want to be going forward. And then actually set a date, June 1st or June 30th, or whatever, before you’re vaccinated when you actually articulate those things to each other, so that this experience isn’t wasted, that we’ve learned from it and grown from it. And I would say a lot of couples have hit reset, and I’m worried that once the world gets back to quote unquote normal, we’ll revert to old patterns that may not have been really healthy. And so, I would say be really intentional about what you want to take into the next season of your life, and learn from this experience.

Daniel Markin:

Amazing. Sharol, thank you for your time, and this has been a pleasure and I look forward to being able to have you back on the program. And maybe we can follow up and talk about things six months from now, and hear how other couples are experiencing life post-pandemic. So again, thank you for your time, and look forward to speaking again.

Sharol Josephson:

Thanks, Daniel, [inaudible 00:27:11].

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes or Spotify, or visit us online at indoubt.ca. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Isaac:

Hey, this is Isaac, one of the hosts of indoubt, a ministry of Good News Global Media. Is it possible that being a Christian young person could be any more complicated than it is today? How do we make right choices and decisions, when so many opinions around us seem contrary to what it means to live for Christ? At indoubt, we hope to help make sense, biblical sense, of those difficult choices and decisions, and also what biblical faith looks like in life and culture in 2021. So, join us every week for another challenging conversation, and our response as God’s people. For everything indoubt, visit indoubt.ca. And if you’d like to help us continue to offer this program, you can make a gift of any amount at indoubt.ca, or by calling 1-800-663-2425.