Beyond Receipts: Building an Unshakeable Marriage Foundation (Agape Love)

Requires a receipt proof of what they did for you last or most recently. Your marriage isn’t running on devotion. It’s running on debt. Well, today we’re retiring the scoreboard and we’re building real love in our marriages by stepping into agape love. Choosing your spouse’s highest good without condition.

Agape is a decision you make before your feelings even wake up. It’s not soft. It’s radical marriage and it’s the way it was meant to go. So let’s get into it. The Driven to Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving. Purpose-filled intentional lives.

Welcome to The Driven 2 Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men. I’m your host, Brent Dowlen, and if you’re finding yourself slipping into marriage, scorekeeping AKA, I’ll do X when she does Y, which describes the majority of marriages. This one’s for you and don’t feel bad. Like I said, this describes the majority of marriages, and you know what?

My marriage went through this phase as well, so. This doesn’t mean you’re a bad husband. This just means you guys have slipped off track a little bit and it’s time to do a little check-in. Today we’re trading contracts for Covenant. By the end, you’re gonna have a 90 day experiment to work with three daily rips, rituals, and scripts that end the score keeping.

Lemme share a quick story of how this crept into my marriage. About 14 years ago, I was looking at our housework. You know, the basic stuff. Dishes, laundry, vacuuming you, the chores. None of us actually like to do, but are kind of necessary for life, right? When I was working 40, 50 hour weeks every week and was getting frustrated because my wife was not keeping things to the standard that I set in my head.

Now two very important notes here. Acts of service is my primary love languages love language. So it really like it. Really doing things for other people is how love is expressed to me. So this really bothered me extra and red flag in this thought process. This is something we hadn’t discussed. It was just something that I had in my head that we hadn’t agreed was the standard.

It was something totally in my brain. So, you know, like women tend to do, I just assume my wife could read my mind and she would know what she should do in the standard, right? Well guys, because of it, I started showing up half-assed on things I did in our marriage for her. I stopped working out as much and taking care of myself as much, and I started putting on extra weight because I just stopped caring because, well, if she wasn’t doing, why should I do extra?

Right? And then one day I looked at myself in the mirror and I realized I wasn’t loving. I was invoicing my wife for our love, and that just was a wake up call. In my life. Now, if that sounds familiar, like I said, you’re not alone to this guys. Everybody has gone through it, and if you haven’t, this is a forewarning because it may rear its head in your marriage.

So are you keeping receipts? It’s a question we have to ask ourselves. Transactional love says I give, when I get it. Weaponizes withdrawal, it turns intimacy into negotiations. You see this actually weaponize a lot of times. When you hear about sexless marriages, if you’ve ever heard that term, it’s a go-to power move for a lot of women because men are considered more physical.

Now, I don’t say that to attack women because men can do this too in their marriage, but you can go on TikTok or Instagram reels and fine reels pretty quickly, suggesting that women leverage sex and physical intimacy against getting their men to do stuff. And suggesting it as a manipulation, guys, and that is super unhealthy for any relationship.

Well, agape love, I choose your good period. That’s the end of the sentence. Now, maybe you’ve heard that term before. If you grew up in the church or you go to church a lot, maybe you’ve heard the term agape love. It’s from a Greek word agape, which is an all encompassing love. It’s the love that the Bible describes God having for his people.

In this case, it’s the simplest variation is I choose your good period, and that is the way I enter my marriage. But it’s not always the way I’ve run my marriage. So I’ve had to reevaluate several times and you’re probably feeling the same. So that’s why you’re listening to this. So here’s a quick self check for you.

Where do you negotiate love in your home? Words, time, touch, service, money. Where do you negotiate love? To get something back. Okay, that’s the first red flag, and that’s a really quick check-in to see if this is starting to rear its head in your marriage. Scorpio keeping turns lovers into litigators, which none of us want now.

If that stung good, then it’s a pressure point worth healing. So we’ll keep moving A story from People Magazine shared this. A woman married for three decades admitted at a family lunch that she’d kept a meticulous record of everything she had done for her h husband and family, and for the small business they built together.

Just in case that’s air quotes. The marriage failed a contingency plan over the years to minimize the risk of being a housewife and compensate for her lack of pension and benefits that she would’ve had if she had stayed in labor force. She even advised her daughter-in-law. To do the same thing with her son, what she saw as a self-protection detonated.

The moment her husband and son found out about it, because when she said, yeah, this is what I’ve been doing, it was a bomb in the room. Her husband and son instantly went cold. It broke all the trust in the relationship. The husband and son were hurt. They’re angry that not only is she keeping score. Also telling his wife to keep score the son’s wife and living with basically one foot out the door is what they felt.

That’s, that’s the hidden cost of Scorekeeping, guys. Whatever safety you think you’re buying, you’re actually spending. So I wanted to share with you guys four pillars of agape love. Here are the four pillars to rebuild a. The first is a covenant identity. Now, like I said, I’ve used the word agape today.

I’ve used the word covenant, and if you’re not familiar with that, I’m gonna break that down in just a second. But covenant identity can be broken down in a relationship like this. We over me, not everyone is familiar with the idea of covenant. So a simple breakdown is this, unlike a simple contract, a covenant usually involves loyalty, trust, and an enduring commitment.

Not just legal obligations, it’s an intentional relational commitment or contract, not transactional. It’s built on trust and often moral or ethical responsibility typically intended to last over a large amount of time, sometimes an entire lifetime. Like I said, a lot of people don’t know that word is, is recognized some to some people as a Bible word, but it really applies to our marriage.

Marriage is a shared mission. Let me, let me refresh your memory guys. Maybe this sounds familiar. I state your name, take you state her name, to be my wife, to having to hold to love, honor, and cherish in good times, and a bad for richer or poorer in sickness and in health for as long as we both shall live in that vow.

And you probably said something similar to this on your wedding day, me became we. That was your covenant to put us first. You can’t put us first When you’re keeping receipts, you have to be working on the best for us all the times. So try the original promise I act for our good before my mood. Try saying this out loud every single morning, especially if you’re struggling right now.

This is just a quick verbal check-in every morning to set your brain in the right direction. I act for our good before my mood. It’s just a reminder that says, Hey, I prioritize us right over how I’m feeling in the moment. This isn’t woo woo guys. It’s just teaching your mind what train of thought, what direction to go with first.

You’re just training your brain. The second pillar of a covenant agape marriage is self-governance. Governance. Governance. I can’t say that word. I own my inputs. Health time tech tone. Care is love means my spouse deserves my best, not, I’ll try if they noticed. So, self-governance is a really simple breakdown of.

I own what I put into this marriage. It’s very simple. The way I show up, the way I do things, the way I act, what I bring into it, who I am as it coming into it, I own all those impulse. I’m responsible for how I show up. Stepping into the idea of care as love means my spouse deserves my very, very best.

Once again, we’re getting out of this receipt keeping. It’s looking at yourself and going, am I showing up the way my wife needs me to today? Am I showing up the way I promised to when I made that covenant with her? Am I showing up and giving her my best, or am I saving my best for other people? Because that happens a lot when you start to look at self-governance in your marriage.

You find out that you put on your best for a lot of strangers. You put on your best go to work, you put on your best. When you go out with other people, you put on your best for everyone else. And quite often you’ll find that you, your spouse is getting the leftovers and your kids are getting the leftovers.

But we’re gonna stay on track with spouses. ’cause I can go a whole nother direction with that. We start talking about kids, but Right. We started with pillar one. And that’s that covenant identity. It’s we before me and then we’re gonna move into the, my spouse deserves the best. It doesn’t matter if she notices, guys.

It doesn’t matter if she recognizes it. It doesn’t matter if she says anything about it or thinks you for it regardless. My spouse deserves my best. Now, I know some of you are grumbling right now because maybe your spouse and you are in. Complicated moment in your marriage where she’s not bringing her a game either, and it’s really easy to start doing this receipt checking thing.

What you own is you, you own your inputs, right? Your health, your tech, your tone, your intention, your focus, the way you show up, that’s what you own. You can’t fix her necessarily. And it’s not about fixing her. It’s about fixing you. Which invites her to show up better as well. Pillar three is creative service.

It’s anticipating the needs of your spouse. You can read that as invisible labor, right? Serve without announcing, you know exactly what makes your wife happy. You know exactly what makes her feel special. You know what makes her feel loved, you know what makes her feel cared for and secure. So show up and anticipate those needs and just do it.

Just take the time to do it. In fact, here’s a daily practice you can try. Call the 10 minute sweep. Do one daily act that matters to your spouse, not to you, not it. It doesn’t matter if you like it. It doesn’t matter if it bothers you or not, or if it’s something that’s important to you, do one daily act that really matters to them.

Right. I could ask myself, what if I did it every day would really strike a chord for my wife? And I can tell you, right, just off the top of my head, right? ’cause you know, you know exactly what your spouse truly just clicks with. And it can be something simple like for my wife, if I got up. And vacuumed the house every morning while she was on her bus route.

’cause my wife drives a school bus. So while she was on her morning route, if I went out and vacuumed the living room and the kitchen, ’cause we don’t have a whole lot of carpet. If I went out into that every day, she would absolutely just go gaga over that because we have a longhaired dog and there are five of us living in a medium sized to small house.

Uh, certainly small with five of us and a dog, and so the carpets we do have in our living room and our kitchen and dining area get a lot of hair really quickly. My dog sheds really bad and it drives my wife insane. 10 minutes wave, guys. I could do it every single day and she would absolutely love that.

So try it with your wife. You know exactly what really, really impacts her in a positive way. Do it. Don’t expect to be thanked. Don’t expect anything out of it. Don’t, there’s no quid pro quo. Like I said, we’re not keeping score. Creative service does incredible things in a covenant marriage. Pillar four is radical, safely safety.

’cause we gotta have four pillars. Otherwise things don’t stand up, right? You can’t support anything otherwise. So radical safety is a really complicated thing, depending on the personalities of your family, because we’re talking about zero sarcasm zones, no threat of complex conflict. And I don’t like to use the word safe zones, but your home should be a safe zone, right?

Your relationship should be a safe zone. Well, in my house, this is incredibly complicated because my wife is a very sarcastic person. She grew up in a very sarcastic family. That is their version of humor. That is the way they think funny works. And so my wife is a very sarcastic person. After 24 years of marriage, I’m a little more of a sarcastic person than I was even before our marriage.

Sarcasm and zingers fly pretty quick in my house. Now my wife is a words of affirmation person, so I have to be really careful because while she thrives in sarcasm, she also thrives on positive words of affirmation in our marriage. And that can end really badly because if you’ve talked to your wife before, you know, there’s what you said, what she heard.

What she thinks she heard, what she perceives it to mean, what her friends in her back of her head would tell her that means, right? So you have to be extra careful. And that’s true with raising daughters as well. FYI, if you didn’t know that. So, radical safety, your marriage needs to be radically safe for her.

So practice the five minute repair. Here’s what I heard. What did I miss? And here’s what I’ll do next, right? It’s all about deciding that you will show up your best for her, and that means protection as well. She has to feel safe. Agape love is the decision that you make before your feelings even wake up.

It is a proactive choice in every part of your relationship. Recently I had to reevaluate my schedule for a we Over Me Choice. If you’ve listened to my show much, you know that I’m a heavy schedule guy. Like, whoa. You know, if this is our first conversation, I’ll, I’ll say it this way. I am almost OCD schedule guy, okay?

I live by my calendar. Well, in our current life, my wife and I are both very busy and going different directions on different schedules. Quite frequently, so the last two weeks I’ve been changing my schedule up. Sunday afternoon is a really busy production day for me. I usually do really heavy production on Saturdays and Sundays and for the last, and I’ve been that way for years due to recent changes in my wife’s schedule.

However, Sunday afternoon is one of the few days that I can absolutely count on the fact that my entire family is home together. So my schedule is really tight, like a lot of your schedules are, and moving one day actually shifts, like it has a domino effect on my entire week, but for the last two weeks, I’ve not been working on Sunday afternoons.

I’ve just turned off my computer or not turned it on at all and spent the time with family because I know we’re all home together. Now this has added loads of stress and chaos because it takes some time to shift my entire schedule over to adapt to a new normal, right? So it’s made my weeks buku stressful, uh, because I’m losing that production time.

I haven’t been doing it long enough to make the clean shift yet. So the last two weeks has been. Crazy. ’cause I thought the first week was gonna be a one-off. Well, it’s made that week, the last two weeks difficult. But the right choice is we over me. It’s best for all of us, and especially for my wife to have that time that she can bank on that we are all together as a family and doing something together because we know that that day is open.

So I’m working to adapt my schedule permanently. Right. I’m applying these floor pillars to my life in real time. So I’m not just saying, guys that this works because it works. I’m saying this is the adaptations I put into my marriage that it helped us make it through 24 years of marriage and we’re looking forward to the next 24 years of our marriage.

But it is an ever adapted thing. I have to keep this in my mind because I’ve not always done this well. We over me meant a radical shift in my schedule recently. Right? But it’s the right choice. So let’s make this practical, right. We will start with a weekly agape audit for you guys. Okay. You can call it a weekly love Audit Audit.

If you don’t like the term agape, but just a quick weekly check in. Where did I love Only when asked because, right? That’s agape love. We love, regardless, where did I expect a return for the way I loved my wife? Right, no quid pro quo, no receipts. Where did I expect that return? You need to pay attention to these things so you can adjust what Creative Act will say.

I see you. I love you this week to my wife. Looking forward toward the next week, these three questions will help you readjust from keeping receipts to agape love in your marriage, which is what it was meant to be. Here’s three scripts that you can use to help in this transition as you’re relearning this, as you’re readjusting for appreciation.

I noticed you blank today. It tells me blank. You love me. You’re thinking of us, that you’re putting us first, that you care about us, whatever that blank is. Thank you. The thank you is important, right? Here’s an ownership script. I contributed to this by blank. So here’s how I’ll repair it, right? I exacerbated an argument.

I made this situation worse. So here’s how I’m gonna fix it. Now, here’s a desire script, and we’re gonna get into this in just a minute, but you can’t put a demand, okay? Once again, no transactional love. So I’d love to connect tonight. No pressure just after the kid’s bedtime maybe, right? You’re expressing interest and I’ve already done a whole show on, uh, getting out of a sexless marriage, right?

Going from roommates to relationship again. And that’s what that statement is on the edge of. And here’s a couple rituals to help replace those receipts, right. Daily twos, two minute hug and two minutes of eye contact in a check-in. Now, this is something I’ve been trying to do with my wife. Uh, it’s gonna feel really, really weird to start with.

You might have to start with a one minute hug, uh, but like, intentionally holding a hug, extra long communicates love. It communicates caring. I contacted something. A lot of people don’t have matters with your wife. How about a weekly one-on-one? Right? Spend a couple minutes, one time a week over your favorite drink, whether that’s coffee or tea, or in a quiet moment, go over the winds, your worries, and ask the question, what would feel like love this week?

I asked my wife a sim, a similar question. I started asking recently, what would make today amazing. I asked my children the same question when I get them going in the mornings for school, what would make this morning amazing? What would make today feel like a win? Right? It’s one of the questions I ask early on.

While asking your wife what would feel like love this week helps her. Be able to communicate clearly to you how you can express love to her this week that she would receive it well, and nothing wrong with asking. It may seem weird at first, but I promise it will make headway. And then real monthly mission, right?

Plan a them centered date around their preferences. I know exactly the kind of thing my wife likes to go do on a date. I also get that wrong every now and then. So take a few minutes and actually once a month, make sure your date night and hopefully you have a regular date night, is really centered around your spouse.

I, I know a lot of you guys are going with Brent. I do that all the time. Ah, do you, do you, if I’m honest, I haven’t taken my wife out for Thai food. In a long time. Why? Because I don’t like Thai food. She loves Thai food. So what do I need to do on my monthly mission? Brent needs to stop being a pain in the ass and suck it up and go take her out to some Thai food because she would really love that.

It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t. Why? Because, well, yes. Relationships are a give and take. There’s a lot of coming together in the middle on things, but it’s a hundred, a hundred. It’s not 50 50. Actually it’s 120, 120. You both just pour into it nonstop. So lemme tell you up front, I’m not perfect at this.

Like I said, in fact, I really struggle with verbal appreciation of the five love languages. Words of affirmation are the bottom of the list for me, for my wife, their number one, and I really have to work hard in my marriage to make sure I’m speaking her love language because even after 24 years. And a lot of grace on her part is still not something that comes easily for me or naturally.

The other day I told my wife, Hey, I noticed you did a great job on managing the situation this week, and I’m so grateful that you took care of that, and I didn’t even have to deal with it. Thank you guys. Her reaction told me everything. Her reaction was telling him how bad I had been at doing this part lately in my marriage.

She looked slightly confused and like she was expecting the other shoe to drop. Obviously, that communicates very clearly, clearly to me that I need to work on using this appreciation script a lot more, and likely the Agape audit because I’m apparently dropping the ball lately in my marriage. Right?

That’s just an honest audit of what’s going on. Now, we’re gonna step on some toes here and get into an uncomfortable part of this. Marriage and that is intimacy without transaction. I know guys don’t wanna talk about sex in a meaningful way, so we won’t spend a lot of time on this guys, but it’s really, really critical.

’cause this is where a lot of men totally screw up their marriage. Sex isn’t a prize, it is a language, and pressure breaks, language safety restores it. Several years ago, I had intimacy expert Susan Bratton on the show, and she is spot on when it comes to understanding that intimacy and sex are all about communication between a man and a woman.

Kas Morrow from Morro Marriage dives deep into the ending transactional intimacy in his coaching as well, and we had a great conversation a couple years ago and is outspoken because he almost destroyed his marriage. With this concept of transactional sex. He went to work and did this and did this, and just expected intimacy.

That that was I, I provided, I went to work, I did the thing. And that’s a lot of us fall into that. Sex is not a weapon, it’s a pivotal part of a healthy marriage. No one, you or your wife wants to feel like an unappreciated piece of meat, at least all the time. But sex can be complicated and infrequent as life goes on, especially in busy households, right?

You both have jobs, you got kids, you’re going this way and that way it can become really complex to have those intimate moments, and then you pile on the stress and feelings, and it can become non-sexual marriages really quickly. That’s why we did a whole episode on that. So create predictable affection.

Plenty of non-sexual touch in your relationship and presence over performance. I was teased several years ago by some friends of ours. They’re like, you guys are so cute. And I was like, what do you mean? They’re like, you cannot help but touch your wife anytime you’re near her. Like you two can’t keep your eye hands off each other.

And that wasn’t even that the best point in our marriage. But the truth is, 24 years into my marriage. They’re a hundred percent right. I can’t sit or stand or be near my wife without having my hands on her. Not in a sexual way necessarily, but I have to be holding her hand. I have to be touching her shoulder.

If she’s anywhere close to me, I have to be in contact with her. It is non-sexual touch, but it is a constant reminder that she is. On my mind, part of my focus and that I am connected to her. So here’s this idea I wanted to share with you guys that has helped in our marriage as, like I said, we have a household of five.

Try the green lightboard concept two or three pre agreed upon yes. Windows in a week, right? Sit down and figure out with your spouse. When is a definitive yes, always for intimacy? It lowers guessing and pressure while keeping consent central, like I said, non-transactional. Okay. That’s why I use the term consent.

A lot of people get lost in the idea of consent in marriage. Well, she said I do. Well, that doesn’t mean she’s always good to go. Okay. Preparation is romantic. Pressure isn’t. And I know the idea of scheduling sexy time with your spouse doesn’t seem sexy. I actually know couples who do this because their schedules are insane.

They make my schedule look really, really slow. The green lightboard is a better variant of that meet to me. It’s not on my calendar, and we’ve already established that, you know, everything’s on my calendar. Well, this is one of the few things that isn’t, but I know exactly when those green light times are Guys.

We don’t have to plan. Like I said, I, I’ve noticed some people who actually have to plan that in. We don’t have to plan sex, but we also know when it’s always an option, which takes off the pressure because when you know it’s always an option, you can have a day where you’re both exhausted and it just doesn’t, it, you know, just being cuddled up with her actually sounds a whole lot better than sex.

So. Make sexy time more enjoyable by taking the pressure off it, by making it known. Hey, this is a time, this is okay. This is when it is. Quick note on intimacy and connection, guys. Predictable rest is actually romantic. Now, I know that probably sounds weird, but when you’re exhausted. You can’t be present emotionally and physically, which is critical for real intimacy, and that’s why I’m grateful for today’s sponsor, MyPillow.

Their pillows and sheets have been a game changer for my wife and I for our sleep. They’re supportive, they’re consistent, they’re comfortable, and guys, they’re really luxurious for other bedroom activities as well. And if you’ve been running on fumes, better sleep setup is one of the simplest, most practical gifts that you can give your marriage.

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Well. Now gentlemen, we’re gonna. Shift gears just slightly from our intimacy conversation to the idea of owning a lane in your marriage. It’s a, we already said it’s a 120. 120, right? There are a lot of things that y’all have to do on a regular basis. That sometimes deciding who is owning that lane is going to take a lot of stress off your relationship.

Invisible labor is the planning, remembering and tracking that no one sees permission, slips, appointments, the mental tabs that you have to go through. Adopt the own lane concept and choose one domain, say all kids appointments, and anticipate and execute and report back without being asked. Reliability creates safety, which we’ve already discussed is really important in your relationship.

Ownership beats helpfulness because helpfulness is random, whereas ownership is reliable and secure. For example, like my wife and I do this with our books. My wife handles all of our personal accounts and budgets, and I handle all of our business accounts and budgets that way. We keep clean accounts as business owners and mitigate one person dealing with all the financial stresses.

We also don’t confuse anything because we keep clear accounts, separate records, and separate people focused on those records. We don’t accidentally make mistakes, but my wife isn’t stressed about our business finances, and I’m not stressed about our personal finances because I know she’s taking care of the stuff that needs to be taken care of there.

She’s got the books, she’s got the budget. She’s going to make sure the bills get paid, right? She writes the checks. I don’t even know what our phone bill is because she writes that check every month. I take care of all that for our business. With our kids. It’s a little more split, but I’m generally taking them to most of their emes stuff right now.

Right. My wife’s not worried about it. She’s got other stuff going on because her bus route in the afternoon really interferes with some of that. Right. It’s not a good time for her to take the kids places because she may not be home for that because she runs an afternoon bus route. Right. She doesn’t stress about it.

She doesn’t have to worry about it because that’s become my lane. Anytime the kids need to go somewhere between, you know, two o’clock in the afternoon till 6:00 PM I’m taking care of it. She doesn’t worry about it. She doesn’t stress about it, and that helps. Knowing is taken care of, creates safety. She doesn’t have to worry about those things.

So figure out what will really. Impact your relationship with your wife. If there is something that is just a constant in your life that you can take on, that will take the stress and difficulty off her because she knows it’s getting done. She knows it’s taken care of. She doesn’t have to think about it.

I guarantee right now you can think of something that if you took ownership of it would take a lot of stress off your spouse. And women need to take the stress off before they can relax and feel safe and way before they can get to intimacy. So think of owning specific lanes. She can do the same thing, but start with you.

’cause that’s what we control, right? We control us. And gentlemen, agape doesn’t mean you’re a doormat, okay? There are boundaries. There are things that hap are gonna happen. There are gonna be conflicts that rise because you have to have healthy boundaries in a relationship. And so don’t get this wrong, agape is all encompassing love.

That means you approach conflicts that way as well, but it doesn’t mean you’re a doormat. Okay. It’s generous, it’s truthful, but boundaries keep love from becoming resentment. So if conflicts start to spike, try the temperature check statement as things escalate. Hey, can we pause for 30 seconds because I care more about you then winning this situation and then count to 30.

Slow it down and breathe. We shared this concept in episode 24 of the season on deescalating conflict. And I’ll leave a link in the show notes ’cause we went on a deep dive on how to deescalate conflicts in your house quickly. But from that temperature check statement, right? Use the rule of first return.

The first to notice the rupture equals first to initiate repair. What are the three Rs of repair? Right? Regulate, relate, reason, solve One small thing. Solve one. Just one thing. Let’s be really clear on that. Do not bring other issues into that. It’s something we talked about in episode 31. I’ll put a link for that as well, but regulate, relate, reason.

Okay? And let me know in the comments if you want me to do a deep dive on that segment. One Corinthians 13 talks about keeping no record of wrongs. That’s a posture. It’s a heart orientation. It’s, I’m not holding your worst moments against who you actually are. Not. Performance as in, not a scorecard. I’m not going, uh, uh uh, how are you?

No. It’s a posture of I’m holding who you are over bad choices or, or hard moments. That’s what that really translates to. You may not be a Bible person. One Corinthians 13 is a beautiful concept of love, uh, and really looks at this agape love concept. But that’s one of the really important takeaways that you can take out of there.

Whether you’re a Bible person or not, is agape love is not, includes not keeping a record wrongdoing, right? You’re not keeping that scorecard. That’s a posture. It’s a heart orientation, and that’s a heart orientation you want to approach your marriage with. That’s at least where it started if you made those very common words.

Another segment that gets left out of love a lot of times is that your health is an act of love towards your spouse. I thought long and hard about how to segue into this. And I couldn’t think of a really elegant way to do this. So forgive me. We all know that I’m not the most eloquent person out there, and I don’t have a great smooth transition into talking about this, but we really need to address health as an act of love when we talk about agape love.

And I’ll give you the number one reason why when I said I do. I was aiming for a lifetime. Well, for a lifetime, that means that I have to take care of my health. That means I promised my wife a lifetime, and if I’m not taking care of my health, I’m not showing up as the best version of me health-wise, then I can’t give her that lifetime.

That means that I don’t have that same lifetime that I normally would. I train because my wife deserves the best version of me, and so do I. But when I said I do, I promised my wife a lifetime, and if I’m not taking care of my health, I’m not giving her what I promised her, what I promised her. Now, we often let ourselves go.

The longer we’re married, for most people, the year one version of them is far healthier and more attractive ’cause that comes with health. Then the year 10, 15, 20, et cetera, versions of themselves. Aging is a bullshit excuse. You may be older. But that’s not an excuse for not being the best version of yourself, which is the healthiest version of yourself.

The healthiest version of yourself is the best version of yourself. Now, for all of you who say, I work really hard and long, and blah, blah, whatever, it’s an excuse, guys. It’s an excuse for me, an excuse for you, okay? I have a friend who is 55 years old, and he looks like he is 25. Like he is jacked and healthy and fit, and I hate him for it because he is in so much better shape than me.

But I don’t want to hear an excuse because I know far too many guys who are even older than I am who are in tremendous health and look amazing. And guys, 20 year olds wish they looked as good as they did is because they have prioritized their health. Which prioritizing your health is part of keeping your relationship vows to each other?

Like I said, I promised a lifetime. There are so many health related. Illnesses by not taking care of your health, that short circuit, that lifetime. And guys, it was a huge wake up call for me. I looked at myself in the mirror one day and I realized just how much weight I had put on as I switched from construction to working a desk job.

My once big arms had gotten pretty small. My once narrow waist well was now not narrow. My stomach was way bigger than it should have been. I literally thought, oh, and I was embarrassed to look at myself without a shirt, and I put my shirt on, and then I thought, if I don’t wanna see myself naked, why should my wife want to see me naked?

And then I thought, this woman has been beside me for over 20 years. Doesn’t she deserve the very best version of me? Doesn’t she deserve the way I showed up at the beginning of our marriage? Shouldn’t I show up even better 20 years in our marriage than I did on day one?

Health is critical for your life. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt now, how many diseases have to do with your health and how many diseases are preventable for your health. If you don’t wanna leave your marriage early, if you don’t want to raise your kids alone, if you don’t want to be alone, then health is gonna matter in your marriage.

So here’s a simple starting point. If you aren’t showing up as your healthiest self in your marriage, we call it our vital five, and it’s as simple as this. Sleep, water, protein, steps, and sunlight. Very basic guys, how much sleep do you need to get every night to perform function and live your best life?

How much water do you need to be taking in every day for optimal health? How much protein do you need to be eating every day for optimal health for your body? How many steps do you need to be taking? Right? How much sunlight exposure, and I can tell you all of that. That’s a minimum of about 20 minutes a day minimum.

Now, I actually could go off on this for an entire episode. So there’s an accompanied download of the Vital five. That is absolutely free. It’s on the website for this episode. Uh, if you go to the webpage for this episode, on my website, you’ll find a free download called Our Vital Five, and it breaks down this concept and gives you some guidelines for how to implement it and how to calculate certain numbers.

It’s totally free. There’s no email required, anything like that, guys, but because I could spend so much time on this, I thought, hey. Maybe I should just break that down for you guys in a really easy to follow download, PDF. So head over to our website, get that for yourself, and do a 92nd health standup together with your spouse twice a week.

Just quick check-ins. No shaming, no, you know, hey, you’re not doing this. Or find ways to do it together. Find ways to encourage each other. But your spouse deserves the best version of you, and that’s the healthiest version of you, because that’s how you keep a forever kinda love, because forever is a whole lot longer when you’re healthier.

So, all right, we’ve got sleep, water, protein, steps, sunlight going, that’s in the vital five, not perfection. Just enough fuel to show up as the man your vows deserve. And that’s the point of today, right? Is posture over performance mindset. How do I look at my marriage? How do I look at showing up for this marriage?

How do I position myself every day to love my wife the way I promised to love her and the way that I know I want to love her? That will make my marriage an amazing radical marriage. So let’s land this plane with something you can actually do this week on beyond the scripts I gave you, beyond the little things I’ve given you already.

I’m gonna give you one simple 90 day experiment to retire that scoreboard and start growing roots in your marriage instead of receipts. Pick two things from the conversation today, right? That could be the Agape audit, that could be the green lightboard. That can be about owning the lane, and I want you to run it for 12 weeks.

Track your inputs only. Don’t announce it. Don’t tell your wife, Hey, I’m doing this amazing thing to make our marriage better. No, no, no, no, no, no. This, this is between you and me. Okay. Run it for 12 weeks and track your inputs. Only Make sure that you are posturing to show up that you are doing the work.

Don’t announce it. And if your spouse is open, do add the weekly one-on-one. That we talked about earlier because that weekly one-on-one just helps you have the information to know which direction to keep moving, and that’s that the wins, the worries, and the what would feel like love this week, right?

It’s a simple question. It might seem a little odd ’cause she doesn’t know what else is happening, guys, so it might seem a little odd to her, but try and get that weekly one-on-one in there as over a cup of coffee every week. And that will help you on how you’re doing with those two and how you’re showing up with those two things you picked and just run it for 12 weeks.

DM me which practice you choose and what you’re learning. And if you want help designing a personalized cares love plan, grab a coaching spot. There’s a link in the show notes. Remember guys, scorekeeping turns lovers into litigators not marriage. Agape is a decision that you make before your feelings even wake up, but it’s key to radical lifelong marriages.

Guys, be sure to message me. I would love to hear how you’re gonna apply this and how it’s going for you. Remember, be better tomorrow because what you do today, and we’ll see you on the next one. The Driven to Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving.

Purpose-filled intentional lives.