 You know it's your idea about Okay, all right Hey friends, this is Dan with Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio and Before we get started on the show, which is gonna be Q&A today. Yep Q&A Yep, I want to tell you about a few things that are immediately available to you Actually, I'm gonna Do a little unusual and I'm gonna quickly tell you about four opportunities to grow in the interior life in a big way one virtual Alphala Summit Sorry didn't say that very well that I My mouth was rebelling Ralph Martin Kevin Vos father Boniface Hicks Bishop James wall Dr. Anthony Lillis Dan Burke spiritualdirection.com for such events July 16th through the 18th is when it's coming this year 2021 there is a virtual Version of that. Yeah, it's been sold out for more than a year. No two years two years. Yeah. Yeah, cuz of COVID we had to But it always sells out Yeah, we're going to a much bigger venue next year because it always sells out, right Webinar how to attend the traditional Latin Mass be this Friday, June 25th at 7 p.m. Central and spiritualdirection.com forward slash events and Then two courses. I want to tell you about Holy Spirit in the life of the church the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the church Monday Starts Monday, July 5th at 8 30 p.m. Eastern Dr. Robert Gotcher It's teaching that course for the Avala Institute Avala dash Institute work last one the psychology of st John of the cross leveling lovingly moved into our right minds. I love that Title I did not think that up the course will explore St. John's psychology and spirituality in conjunction from with insights from modern studies of attachment trauma and healing Dr. Jeff Thompson Avala-institute.org so all Magisterium faithful stuff all stuff that's going to make you holy and help you to heaven. That's awesome Okay, and we will be having another marriage retreat coming up February of next 2022 so you'll want to keep an eye on all of that when registration comes open Awesome. All right, and you can find it all I mean you find your way to anything we do at the avalanche or at spiritualdirection.com Yeah, and Apostle a va.org as well, and if you subscribe then you get You can decide what kind of emails you want to come to you once a week or more often so that you can never So you'll never miss any of the great content, and we have amazing content awesome All right, you ready? Yeah, I'm ready mark. It's echo. This is Dan Stephanie Burke. Welcome. Did I say that too fast? This is the aspect of work. It's like pregnant rosary. No, we're full guys. Lorda with the buzz like that. Okay. Wait. I'll start over We never pray the rosary that way that's true ready go this is Dan of Stephanie Burke Welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio Haven of rest your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind Where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw upon the wisdom and the insights of the saints that we might have Light on the path to heaven Please Jesus please Jesus So today we're doing Q&A and so our producers gonna pop up questions that folks have sent us and It's Q&A on marriage, right? Okay, mostly about marriage. Yeah. Yeah, all right marriage divine intimacy and marriage. Yeah. All right. What do we got? Okay, is it is it every very appropriate to contrary ever appropriate To contradict your spouse and public or in front of your children. What if they are wrong or at fault? Yeah I mean, I think so I think like every chance I get I try to tear down Stephanie in front of Other people and our kids. What if I'm doing something wrong? Oh, totally Then I'm just gonna rip into you and make sure you know it and everybody else knows it. Yeah, because no, yeah Bad idea. It is a bad idea really dumb idea. Yeah, and and it's unfortunate. You know, I don't mean to like the person who asked the question You know, you know what they're struggling with. Yeah, you know what they're struggling with. Yeah, they see something that's off Obviously, they're they're referring to something that they've asked them not to do or talk to them about not doing They believe it's destructive or problematic or sinful or something, right? There's something that's disturbing them And so they see it in the moment and boy, they're gonna jump on it. They're gonna correct them, right? Yeah, you know, I think part of the problem here is that it is not my job as a wife To discipline my husband, right? And it's not my husband's job to discipline me, right? We are to be subject to one another You know a fusions five as Christ is Subject subject to God the father God the father And as he was subject to Joseph and Mary, right in Nazareth, right? So we need to think about what does that look like, right? It's not Controlling because this idea of correcting somebody in public. That's about control. That's about changing their behavior And the the truest way that you can change somebody's behavior is through love. Yeah and Conversation, yeah Get counseling if you need it, right? You know meet with your priest or whatever if it is truly Sinful if it is something that's a difference in Parenting styles or you know, whatever it is, you know If you know, let's just say if you were on your way to go You know do something horrific step in front of us step in front of a bus I would grab your arm or if you were out to do something that was truly sinful Like we're at a party and you go and and you're you're getting too close to some chick. Yeah You know the first thing I would say is I'm leaving Hope you'll join me. Yeah, and then I'm gonna I'm gonna walk out even quiet in that But even in that it's gonna be very happening a lot between us Praise Jesus. No But so, you know, I think this idea of oh, it's my job to control. It's my job to discipline There's something off there and we have to kind of go to a deeper thing is like what what's behind that what is my need to control and and Correct somebody in public and it's really an assault on the dignity of the person You know, I I don't even like correcting my kids in public You know, I'd rather pull them aside in private and say, hey, this is not appropriate or whatever Because it just does a lot of damage and if you want intimacy you want to mind intimacy and marriage Never ever correct your spouse and public or even I in my opinion Disagree with them in a kind of an aggressive way I mean you and I are pretty open with one another and when we teach and if there's something now, you know That's different, but like no, that's not right or you didn't do that, right? You know, that's very demeaning. Yeah, and very destructive to our relationship Yeah, because the what what ends up happening is we're shaming. Yeah that person and It's just not good. Yeah, it's absolutely not and there's no behavior You know and like correcting a child or let's say a husband and wife had an agreement about how to discipline a child There's no behavioral problem with the child or that instance. That's worth Harming in any way the dignity of the other or your relationship, you know, and it's not that hard Just stop or make a note go in private and say, I love you We had agreed to this and it didn't happen or this it wasn't right or it didn't make me feel good But you do that with gentleness and respect. Yeah, which is what if he's incest, you know Wives respect your husband's husbands. I love your wives. We must respect our husbands and we must love our wives, right? Even when they're not perfect, right? Yeah, oh that you are you sure the passage isn't contingent upon the perfection of the other Come on now respect your husbands if they're doing everything, right? Yeah, it doesn't say that Love your wives if they look great and they're perfectly submissive, right? That's not what it says, right, right, so all right you want to Read that one so Let's see the lagging spouse or another Experiences on the path Do you see that? Reducing in frequency as the journey progresses or is that a natural flow of life? I can translate wow, okay So which what she or he is asking is is Is when we're on the narrow way, yes, and we're growing moving toward God One lags one person lags and then the other person did one spouse lags the other spouse lags Do you see that lagging of one in the yet? Do you get in a better rhythm over time as the journey? Progresses or is that a natural flow of life? Yeah Well, I mean, you know, it's both because if you if you talk if you let's see Somebody some interviewer asked Pope Benedict How many paths are there to heaven? Yeah, and he says as many as they are stars in the sky Yeah, that was sea world. Yeah. Yeah, I mean beautiful response. No, he said as many as there are Did you say that as many as there are souls or something? Yeah, maybe it was star anyway It was a lot of they're all the same thing. Yeah, it's unique right to the person your journey is unique My journey is unique. I can't expect your journey to look like my journey, right? You know, it's been different at different times each one of our children their journey is unique All of our loved ones their journeys are unique So, you know, it's both and there will be times when Dan is you know Practically, you know ready to by locate and I'm not you know I'm I'm irritable or I'm struck, you know, whatever it is and vice versa You know, there'll be times when all is well with me and the universe and the Lord and you know I'm I'm floating around singing praises all the time and he's irritated because you know, whatever my sock doesn't fit right, right so And and you know, he's he's you know, whatever, right? So this ebb and flow of our of our spiritual life is normal and It requires of us great patience. Yeah To emulate the Lord and his patience with us because he has a lot of patience with us So what it isn't though just to be clear It's not if we're both pursuing Christ the normal ebb and flow is not a horizontal ebb and flow It has a trajectory let's say from the bottom left hand side of the box to the upper right hand corner, right? Though it does undulate up and down right with the art because of our sinfulness, so that the overall trajectory is up is heaven Yeah, so what's true is you and I have less conflict Now than we did when we were first married. Absolutely. We have Jesus. We have more We have more unity now than before we were married We experience a deeper kind of love and intimacy now than when we first got married, you know, so It the ebb and flow is normal and it does improve, but it never goes away. Right, right, right. Yeah. All right. Good What's the next question? When it comes to non-holy relationships How or what ways can we deal with them when it's a family member? So we should talk about non-holy relationships, right? Right So those are relationships that are destructive to the person So I guess some examples might be if our let's see in what ways if it's a family member So if we have an uncle who's who's You know lives a total Batchery contrary to the faith, right? How do we deal with it when it's family which means we have some obligation to be connected to them whatever How about this some expectation that we're connected to them? There's an expectation that we are connected to them, but if it's destructive To our marriage or destructive to our children. Yeah, then we shouldn't right because if you're if the exposure of your children to a family member And and they're you know, they're foul language or they're talking against the faith Or they're mocking the faith or our lady or they're you know Promoting things that are that are harmful and sinful, right? There is no Obligation, right to spend time with that family member. Is there an obligation to pray for them? Yes, is there an obligation to love them from a distance? Yes And you can always have a conversation over the phone and just maintain the relationship that way Hey, I'm praying for you. Hope everything's going well, you know Until they start to say something that shouldn't I mean I had a family member God rest his soul and I could only be with him about an hour Like I would go to visit but I knew that in about an hour You know the the little honeymoon was over and something was going to devolve in an anger Wrath foul language or something and as soon as I saw that coming or it happened It was I got to go love you, you know, I'll see you next time and up I'd go, you know So we have to keep that in mind. We can't allow especially With our our marriage, you know, I think you and I talked about this especially in the marriage retreat Is that there is a we have hedges of protection around our marriage and no one enters into that? Marital union between you and I except God himself, right? That's it, you know, as much as we love our family Yeah, when we get back from the break, maybe it'd probably be good to give some more examples and like how we've dealt because we've dealt with this pretty Extensively, yeah, and of course we won't use names or embarrass anyone But I think we can give some really clear examples of ways to protect Or ways other people have done it as well. Yeah, yeah, exactly So before we head to break make sure you head out to spiritualdirection.com and subscribe that way if any of the evil empire of Social media and whatever boots us off. You can still find us and get the content that you love and We love giving we love serving you in this way and we get back from the break We'll continue our conversation about divine intimacy in marriage. Okay, and the markets that go is Dana Stephanie Burke Welcome back to divine intimacy radio, right where we're doing a Q&A day a lot of questions on divine intimacy in marriage Yeah, how to protect your marriage. So before the break, we were talking about how to deal with family members who are just not We're living contrary or in a very obstructive way in a very overt way In one case, I won't say who or kind of how it works But we have a family member who just tends to like to do this weird divide thing and you know secret thing And so one I warned you about them when we first got married and then one time they called and said hey Don't tell Stephanie X Y Z and I said can you hold on one second? And I paused the phone and I merged you into the call and I said so you had something to say to me and Stephanie She's here on the line. She's here on the line, right, right? You only had to do that twice That just stopped, you know and the beauty of it is you still have a relationship with that person. You can still love them Yeah In a in a reasonable way and and honor them. Yeah in that and I didn't I mean I know that sounds I don't know. I wasn't mean to them I didn't I didn't scold them or whatever But I showed them by behavior You don't get to tell me things that I don't tell my wife. You don't get to criticize you don't get to Do anything, you know, she's my wife. Nobody gets in this including you Step back love you don't do that dysfunctional. It's wrong without even saying you're wrong. You're dysfunctional get get away Whatever, you know, and you know what the effect of that was is I felt safe And I think that's that's really important for you know, whoever asked this question or listeners to hear Is that our unity and your protection of our relationship even in such an overt way Gave me a sense of safety. My heart was safe with you. I knew I could trust you I knew you weren't off having conversations or doing things that were destructive to our marriage. It was it was extraordinarily powerful For me because I had never You know, I'd never seen it or never really felt it You know, because you know, we all experience people gossiping about other family members are doing, you know, all that stuff And that's painful And we we're responsible for the words that come out of our mouth We're responsible before god, right for how we speak about one another and and two others So it it gave me a place of safety to understand my Marriage my union with my husband is so important to him that he's willing to As it were stand on that hill and go and it was my it was a significant person in my life Right that I was saying hey, you don't get in between Stephanie and I right But even if it hadn't been right, you know, it was just extraordinarily powerful a couple more examples another example is When we don't leave in cleave which scripture tells us to do meaning when we get married We form a new union and we are one we are a unique distinct Unit that is different than the way we were when we were individuals and we're supposed to leave In that sense the family unit That we came from in the sense of now we're in a new spiritual bond We're in a new structure of authority in relationship with god and cleave So leave and draw near and close and that's our new You know sell if you will doesn't mean we don't love But the doesn't mean we don't have relationships with others, you know The primary influencer in my relationship in life is you period Yeah, you know so and and that's what we do for one another marriage. So as an example You know, sometimes you'll find that mother-in-laws usually Of either side will be, you know controlling and want to have it they have they don't know about proper boundaries There's a great book by cloud and towns and called boundaries in marriage just boundaries in general Um, and they just don't understand how to deal with okay now this You know, my son or my daughter is no longer now I'm not their primary, but they fight to make you their Primary which is very can be very destructive to a marriage. It's how it's spiritually damaging For everyone and it's really important for the wife and the husband That you know, you make decisions about for instance holidays as an example You have to be unified together on what you're going to do each year for holidays Your your family should have no influence Uh, I mean they can have influence because they hey, we're gonna have a big party and your sister's coming and blah blah blah That's fine. You know, those invites are fine. They're good and healthy and you should spend time with them Even if there are difficult relationships because you want to love them and show the gospel with them To be together with family. It's important. It's normal But the way that you do it should be you must be unified as a couple And so, you know, if you have a And we had several questions about this in our last uh, uh, to find intimacy in marriage retreat You know, if if one if a certain one side of the family is constantly saying Trying to monopolize holidays. That's just not fair. Right. Even if the other side, let's say We don't know anything about either the family, you know But let's just say one side is really dysfunctional and difficult to be with guess what If you're going to one you need to go to the other And you need to alternate and just deal with it, right and you need to love both Um, we're finding different times around the holidays or whatever, you know So one of the things that we've done too is we control the environment where we connect and engage When there's a lot of dysfunction And we're careful about how much time we spend, you know, we and by the way, we don't judge anyone in our family We're just saying there are, you know, clearly as an example, you know One of my brothers used to be pretty heavily into drugs and By god's grace, he's turned his life around and at my father's death We reunited and now we're good friends in the end. He's pursuing the faith Which is really beautiful another one of my brothers And so I I talk with that one every every week Another one of my brothers who I loved early is not escaped that lifestyle and I and it was so bad and so Destructive to the right. I just said look, I love you. My door is always open Once you hit it once you decide to go to a a or narcotics anonymous Alcoholics anonymous which or narc whichever and you're in for six months. Please call me. I'd like to restore our relationship Yeah, yeah, and and that was in part to protect our marriage to protect our relationship to protect our kids Right, you know, I I think it's really important. That's the other thing is you want to protect the unity in the marriage But you also want to protect what you're exposed to right and to say well I can be around this and it's not going to affect me because I'm a follower of jesus Is is not true It's it's like saying that you can sit in front of a of a Pornographic film and say oh this isn't going to affect me because I follow jesus, right, you know, we I love the idea of hedges Around us and we we are very careful and purposeful about what gets into those hedges Whether it's family members Whether it's what you know what we see what we do what we experience And what we expose our kids to and we're responsible before god for that So another destructive behavior in my opinion. Now. This is a little bit out not as severe But I I think it's weird I don't know about you to do guys night out Or women's night out. Yeah, I'm not a fan I'm not I mean maybe to go hunting or four wheeling or something Which is different Then guys going and just hanging and smoking cigars and drinking. I don't know I just can't Do that. I don't like it and I just I don't I've never been edified by That kind of behavior And I don't recall it ever being holy now I guess if it was You know, some of the members of our community guys and they you know, wanted to just pray together Or do something specifically holy fine, but I don't get that That behavior. I don't I don't think it's healthy. Yeah, I I I don't agree with it either, you know when when Now like I I love being with My aunts and my mom and so we'll get together and and you know, do something once a year twice Maybe yeah, but but it's like we go get our nails done together We go to lunch or whatever and usually it's because you're hanging with Jordan, you know or the other the males of the family, right? Yeah, but we're still Together, right? It's all healthy, right? We're not going on separate vacations, right? We're not going on cruises separately and all that stuff because I I think it opens up all kinds of opportunity for Brokenness and invitation and to share things you shouldn't be sharing and that's the other thing, you know talking about boundaries is In that hedges thing I don't speak ill about you to anybody ever me to ever ever even if I am Distressed and upset with your whatever I never call and speak to my mom or to my aunts or anything Very destructive my husband did x y z blah blah blah That is a doorway to divorce. Yeah, just so you know, yeah, that is that is an absolute no no You need to deal with the stressors in your family You know if you need to go to counseling together if you need to go see your priest together If you need to go to confession because of your own sin You know, that's great all those things are good You should not be speaking to others because I guarantee you they don't know the other side of the story They are going to console you in your brokenness and your sin And pretty soon they are creating a wedge and division and division. Yeah very damaging. Okay. We may have time for another one Yeah Is the plan of love intended as individual or do you create? Uh joint plan of love. So they're talking about during the divine intimacy and marriage retreat We we teach them how to create a plan of love Which is a deliberate way you live to develop intimacy between you and god and you and your spouse And can you pop the question up again because I lost is it is it can you do it just individually or as a joint? Yeah, so traditionally in the church, this is called a rule of life. It's very powerful spiritually We called a plan of love. So I like this idea of I love god and I love my spouse I love my son. I love those whom he's given to me to care for a particular way to Follow god. Yeah, and I'm going to every day get up and live according to a plan that actually Draws me to comport my life to the claims I make or to the love that I have In very deliberate ways. So I have a plan of love that says, you know I get up at this time and pray and all that and I have and part of it says Have I been gentle and attentive to Stephanie? And every night before I go to bed or in the next morning I I do an examination of conscience to make sure that I was Yeah, so Yeah, and and you can do it either as an individual I mean a joint I think, you know, there's a lot of discussion around that and I think if you're working on something together Maybe yeah, um, maybe that's something that you can do. I think you and I probably could have done that at the beginning of our marriage But we've always had our own it's meant to be more of an individual thing But I also think the ability to have it as a family You have a rule plan of love for your family would be a great thing so If you want to connect with us more closely head out to apostoli va.org That's a p o s t o l i v i a e dot org and there you can find all kinds of free courses and things. That's our community We are uh, we're around the world and all faithful all orthodox catholic spirituality And the way that we can live and love and honor god and one another. Okay with that our time is up Until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body Irreproachable at the coming of our lord. Jesus christ amen