Angie and Karaline (daughter-in-love) discuss what it means to cultivate healthy relationships between in-loves and why it is important to stand firm against the culture’s stereotypes and stigmas that all too often bring division between in-love relationships.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. Our desire as in-loves.
2. Be the in-love you want to have.
3. Why you might be struggling in your in-love relationships. 
4. What the culture says about in-love relationships.

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Scripture in This Episode:

1 Peter 5:5 – “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”

Genesis 2:24 – “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Exodus 20:12 – “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

Philippians 2:3-4 – “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from courageous mom and I’m

Isaac from Resolute Man.

We’ve been married for twenty one years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the

Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18, and it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting and the fall.

Hello, everybody, welcome back to the Courageous Parenting podcast. Today, I have a special guest with me, I have Caroline, my daughter and love is here with me today, and we are talking about a very important conversation, really. I mean, it’s a topic about cultivating relationships in love. And if you follow me on social media, you know that I don’t like using the terminology daughter in law. It just seems

Cold. It seems cold, right?

So I call care my daughter in love. Or really, I just call her my daughter. But you know, many of you guys know our son got married and we are talking about those really those in-law relationships today on the podcast. But before we do, I just wanted to say thank you so much for following us on Rumble and on social media. All of the reviews that you guys give, especially on Apple, make a huge difference and we read those. They’re such an encouragement, especially in those times when we’re like, Oh, what do people really need to hear? We love seeing what has impacted you the most. That means the most to us. So giving us those five star reviews is also a huge help for rankings and for getting the word out there so that more people can be impacted by the podcasts. So thank you for joining us in the one million Legacy’s movement. Woo-hoo. So we just had Christmas.

It was so awesome.

And Caroline in Austin came and stayed at the

House and we haven’t left. That’s right. It’s Monday. Yeah. To be fair, we are having a

Lot of fun with the snow. Snow is pretty beautiful. We have maybe four or five inches. What do you think? Yeah, really? Ok. Yeah. And so I just love a white Christmas. I love the the last few places we’ve lived. We’ve gotten snow on Christmas special. But. That’s right. So for those of you who maybe don’t know, Isaac and I have been working really hard the last few months on launching an app and it is going super well. So if you haven’t checked out the be courageous app, all you have to do on Android or your Apple phone is go to your app store and put in, be courageous and you will find us there. And it’s super awesome. We have loved building that community. We have quite a few hundred people in there already, lots of just biblical encouragement articles. Isaac and I do a live, a 60 minute live every month in there. That’s a Q&A, and that’s been really fun to get to know people and answer questions. But so if you are interested in that, please join us there. Ok, let’s dive in. This is a really special conversation. It is, you know, I was hesitant to dive into this conversation because I’ve only been a mother in law for a couple of months.

Yeah, you’ve only been a daughter in law for a couple of months. We’re very inexperienced, but it’s been going great.

It has been. And so that’s part of why we thought we would share. I know that over the last few years, a lot of you guys have asked me questions, even though we hadn’t had any kids that were married about how to handle relationships with your in-laws. Maybe you’re a parent, you have kids and you have some either tension in your relationships with your husband’s kids or your wife’s kids or wife’s parents or your parents. And it usually is centered around parenting or just even just the relationship itself never was like cultivated on the right foot. Maybe. And so we as we started talking like I thought to myself, Caroline thought to herself. I said, Hey, let’s just think separately about what we would want to talk about. And we both came

Up with the same back with the same

Idea. So it must be what

We’re supposed to talk at once, it shared. That’s right.

So you guys, we are really excited. We’re going to go over about four different little snippets of scripture here just to kind of reference. But you’ll get the feel for where we’re going with this very quickly. The first thing that I think is important to recognize, though, is that culture has some really bad ideas about

The mother in law specifically. Yeah, yeah. Like, it’s the joke, the mother in law.

That’s literally what I got asked when I was wedding dress shopping, how was the mother in law? And I was like,

Huh, what are you talking about? She’s awesome. I kind of felt a little bit defensive. I was like, Excuse me, my mother in law’s great. Why would you even ask me that? But it’s true.

A lot of people have issues with their mother

In law, and it’s interesting because years ago, just even as we started, Isaac and I started parenting our kids, I started a little journal of like what I would like to be like when I became a grandma. And a lot of those things are things that are centered around my relationships with my future daughter in laws and son in laws well set in love and daughter in law. And when you look at like those desires that you yourself maybe had and it wasn’t fulfilled or even the things that you’ve really respected and loved and appreciated about your relationships with your own parents as you’ve started having kids like you have to realize that those things are either there or missing based upon the relationship that you have cultivated from the ground up with them. Mm hmm. And so you guys, we chose the word cultivating because you really is something that you have to build a relationship. And so Caroline and I didn’t like I didn’t know her from the time she was a little girl like I did. Obviously, I give birth to my own kids, obviously, right? And I raised them. A lot of people, though, they adopt their children, and so they maybe don’t know them the first eight years that they’re alive or whatever also. And so you have to have the same perspective, though, of building a relationship, whether your children are biological or not. Mm hmm. And so when Austin was going to propose to Caroline or even when they were just serious in their dating relationship, I kind of knew like, well, I kind of knew that you were the one for him.

It was going in that direction, that’s for sure. Yeah, it was pretty

Obvious, but I but I knew like, I need to be really careful. Not like walking on eggshells. Careful, but like intentional. Careful. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And so I even think back to do you remember that conversation? This just popped into my head. Do you remember that FaceTime call that you and I had?

Yeah. When was we talked? For two hours? I was back in Texas. This was actually before I was even allowed to like Austin. I were still writing. And if you’ve heard our podcast, you’ve heard our story. So this was when we still were not in much of communication and I called mom,

Or you called me. I don’t

Remember. I don’t remember. One of us called each other. I was literally in Texas, wasn’t with any of my families. I was visiting a best friend and we took on. There was almost a break two hours at the house, right? Is that the same situation? Yes, that’s right.

I was really somebody was going to break in like, murder me and I went to I was like, I was like, If I talk to Austin’s mom, at least he’ll know what happened to me because I can’t talk to him. I remember this. Yeah, that’s true.

So you were visiting some friends and we had a face time call and we ended up talking and just I feel like that was really the first time that we had a long time to talk that was undivided. That and when you helped me pack before we moved to Idaho. So those of you who don’t necessarily know all of Caroline and Austin’s story, her family moved from central Oregon because we all lived in central Oregon to get like, you know, knew of each other and then got to know each other better. And then they moved literally four days before we moved. So they moved to Montana, and then we moved to Idaho. Some of our kids went over and helped them pack and load. Oh yeah. And then Caroline came over to my house and helped me pack and load up stuff all the time.

And that was actually

A good time for us to just to be able to talk and have some time. I remember being up in my bedroom and packing up my bathroom and my bedroom, and you got to see some sentimental things.

Pictures were coming out. Cool family history.

But I remember the first thing Angie said was, I don’t want the boys packing my like China or something.

She’s like, You can do this. I was like, Oh my gosh, I think I, I hit it pretty well that I was absolutely terrified. And she’s like all the top cabinets. I’ve just left those for something that’s going to be careful. And I was like, Oh boy, that was low key kind of a stressful moment. But she was like, I really want it to make the whole trip. And I was just like, Whoa, this woman has a lot of faith in me. I did.

I did have a lot of faith in you. I do have a lot of faith in you. But I think that having those times where we were able to have some undivided just time to talk and spend together was really important for us to be able to start trusting the character of one another.

You know what I mean? I feel like intentionality needs to start before the marriage happens because you’re marrying into a family, and so you want to know that who you’re marrying into, you’re making time to make those intentional conversations with them before you get into your marriage. And then you’re like, Oh, wow, I’ve got some in-laws here that are not. I didn’t do any real connecting with them, and that’s really sad.

It’s interesting because you just touched on something that I think is really an important issue that I think even Christians potentially stumble in this because the culture there’s such an independent spirit among young people, especially like when they’re starting to when they move out. It’s like this. A lot of times people don’t leave their homes well, they leave with an independent spirit. And because there was some kind of strife or some kind of issue, right? And it’s like this hard thing that creates. Some form of conflict or division or whatever, right, and that is very true for a lot of people in the culture, but then when they start to like, get married and so forth, they do like the whole dating aspect of life independently, like not involving their family very much, not getting wise counsel, not wanting them to necessarily even meet the person until it’s serious. And all of these kinds of things. And we did not do that. No, with you guys, that was not something that you. That was not the spirit in your heart or Austin’s heart. And so for those of you who are young and are listening, that’s something that I really felt honored by. That would be just a side note for you to maybe take that little nugget and go, Oh, how can I honor my future father in law and mother in law by getting to know them, by letting them be a part of our lives and not being so independent and exclusive? I guess. Yeah, because I think that when people are, especially when they’re younger, it’s almost like the younger people are, the more they feel like they have to prove or something to where they think that if they’re independent, they’re proving that they’re so like confident

And they can do.

Yes, but you guys, that’s not what being an adult is like. Being an adult is being and and being spiritually mature, which is what we should want for all of our kids as they grow older and we should strive for that ourselves is that we don’t have an independent spirit. We have a humble spirit and we’re willing to get help when we need it and ask questions. And it goes both ways. So cultivating healthy relationships with in-laws is something that you have to start with. And we wanted to read from Genesis Chapter two verse twenty four, because this is something that I think a lot of people have a hard time with understanding how to do this.

Yeah, I mean, there’s a natural adjustment that is that the Bible lays out so clearly for us. How nice is that I love when he takes transition periods of our life and it’s like, here’s a verse and then just do it, this verse says, and it’ll go with you anyways. Genesis 2:24 I will say my mom in love has better eyesight than I do because her Bible has

Taught you Sprint. I’ve ever tried to read I. We’re reading glasses. I’m not sure if you know that, but I have the extra giant print bible and she hands me this and I’m like, Give me a second, I’m going to be squinting over here. I think I can read this, though, OK? Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother

And hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and we’re not ashamed.

And so, you know, as this whole concept of leaving and cleaving, this is the concept that is difficult for people where they still like, view their son. Like, I’ll just use that as an example, because Austin is the one in my life who is now married. So moms sometimes struggle with the concept that, oh, they have left,

They’ve

They’ve left, and they have now cleaved to a wife. And so there is a kind of a cutting that happens in that sense where I, as his mom, I’ll always be his mom, like, I’ll always love him the same. I’ll always like, remember his childhood and all those things. But there is now a different woman in his life that is the number one in his life that he makes decisions with. He goes to her first. It’s all about their alignment and their relationship. He’s not coming to mom first and asking mom, Hey, can you help me with this or whatever, right? And so one of the things that has been really, I think, helpful in my relationship with Caroline is that I’ve even come to her and just tried to honor and respect her and go, Hey, I don’t want to like cross boundaries here. And so if you need help with something like when Austin got sick, for example, I just even think of like last week, like I didn’t even have to go to her. Caroline came to me because her heart posture was, I don’t know what to do at this moment with this specific situation. Can you help me, mom? And I was like, Oh, totally. How much help do you want? Like, I was trying to show her the same respect that she was showing me.

So instead of like bombarding her with all the things I, I actually first asked, What have you done so far? Yeah, because I know that she’s grown up with a mom that was very like minded, does everything naturally, all these things, right? And so I’m like, I don’t want to, like, start out this relationship overwhelming her, like telling her to do things she’s already been doing because that can feel condescending, and I would never want her to ever feel that from me. And so if I start out with asking a question first, what have you done and then kind of trying to like, fill in the gaps that then I can answer her question her first question how to. What should I what do you think I should do to help him? And so that is a good example, I guess, of what it means to like, give and take and how there is a hard posture that is needed from both sides, both the mother in law or the mother in love and the daughter and love where we’re both wanting to like, honor one another and respect one another and help one another.

Yeah. And I will say it kind of leads to this next thing when there is that mutual respect of like, I feel respected that mom’s not trying to run our relationship, then I’m like, I want to ask mom’s advice because she has a lot of wisdom and I want to glean from that. And I’ve I’m obviously covering it from one point of view because I’ve grown up in a certain family and she’s raised her kids to be a certain way. And I’ve seen the fruit in the way. And I think if I was basically raised, my husband and so I’m like, I want to learn from that. But mom does a really good job of staying approachable, and that’s something where I feel like a lot of daughter in laws don’t necessarily feel like they can come to their. Moms and be like, uh, like, I really want to ask this or I want this because they’re either scared they’re going to get too much like mom just said, or they feel like they’re just going to get like, Well, why didn’t you think of this? Well, of course, you would do this in this situation. And so the fact that she does lead with questions allows us to be as a part or as separated as we choose. And it keeps this really healthy of like, I don’t feel like moms trying to force anything on me, and therefore I want more because it’s not being some like force like you need to or you should have, or because we’re learning and being aware of that being somebody that’s been married. How many years? Yeah, twenty to twenty two years has nine children like she realizes I’m not going to have what she has because

I haven’t been married. I’ve been married two months. I have the two minus the two, minus the two. And so it’s really, really so nice

At such a blessing and you’re going to be able to bless your in-laws. I mean, the fact that she even had purposed in her heart before she even had in law, like daughter in law, kids like that is such a blessing and that it’s something that you’re going to do if you don’t have them, if you do have them, obviously you can work on that now. But like the fact that she did and she purposed before it ever came up, I’m so about doing things before you get to them, because then you’re you’re aware of what you want. It’s where

You live. And when you talk about that all the time and the parenting mentor program about different ways to be proactive parents. And that would even be like another good podcast just how to be a proactive mother in love or father and love, right? Like, yeah. But it goes both ways. And so understanding that like both have to invest in the relationship and make the time and try to love and honor and get to know one another, too, with like without having like ideas in your head of what you think they already are. Right? And so that, I think is like super super important because it’s easy for like it would be easy for Austin to be like, Oh, well, my mom doesn’t it up. And then for Caroline to like, think something in her mind and not ask me, right? But I don’t see Austin as doing that sort of thing. And so that’s where I think that it’s it’s an important thing for us all to constantly be reflecting it and understanding that not only do we build a reputation for ourselves with other people and relationships like I’m building a relationship and a reputation with Caroline, either she’s going to feel like I’m approachable or she’s going to feel like I’m not either. She’s going to feel like I’m controlling, or she’s going to feel like I’m not. Do you see how there’s a reputation that’s being built there? And the truth is, is that we do that with our kids that we raise from the time they are babies up, right? Are they trustworthy or are they? Are they not? Is mommy going to pick me up when I’m crying or not? Like, it starts literally when they’re infants? And it either cultivates selfishness in a baby even by overly like helicopter parenting, or it creates a trusting, healthy attachment, right? And so I think that what’s important for us in this conversation, though, is I think it would be good for people to really reflect first and foremost on what they would want.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, if you were like to ask yourself that question. So for me, I would say, what would I want in a mother and love? Like, what would mean the most to me and then to try to be what I want, right? And then Caroline would ask similar but different question where she would say, What would I want from a daughter in love and then try to be that right? And so, like both of us, have an opportunity in this, to be introspective, reflective, honest, remove the rose tinted glasses, ask ourselves the hard questions and really ponder that because we love one another. And that’s part that’s like the first part of cultivating a good relationship is like, OK, me what I need to work on here. Yeah. And I think that that’s one of the biggest problems with the whole like reputation that mother in law’s have, especially because they’re like the older, more potentially domineering is that they’re they’re not thinking about like how they might need to change or how they can be in a relationship. But instead, they’re like that

Girl or you know what I mean? That was honestly, really cute. I don’t think most mothers are in love to do that. I cute that girl, but that was adorable.

But in all seriousness, like I have another friend whose son is getting, he’s engaged. He’s going to be getting married in a few months. And she texted me a little bit ago and was like, OK, Angie, I need all the tips, and I’m like, You know, honestly, I my biggest goal is to knock. Out of the park to literally, like, hit that ball outside the park of what a mother in law can be in the sense of I hate what the reputation is in the culture and what people say about, Oh, your mother in law or you know what I mean? And I mean, there’s movies that are titled this. I haven’t seen them, but I’ve seen them like promoted and it just doesn’t look healthy. It doesn’t look good, like you watch any romantic movie. And there’s always a mother in law that shows up somewhere in there. That’s like Cruella de Vil.

Like, seriously? Right? It’s true. It’s true.

And I just so, you know, we have to be aware that like we are actually already, when you step into that role, I felt like, wow, I’m already in a battle for like a reputation that’s completely opposite of what the culture is expecting of us. And so having some grace for the mother in

Law’s out there is probably a good thing because they really they

Even if they are like the most perfect mother and love that could ever exist because there’s this cultural like pooh poohing of that specific role within a family, they are literally like a salmon swimming upstream. But it’s a good fight. It’s a good swim that we need to swim upstream. We need to try hard to not be what the culture expects. But so let’s let’s share from another scripture. We we’re talking about being what you want. And so there is a passage in Philippians Chapter two, verse three and four says do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. And then it goes on Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. And if there’s one verse that I hope and pray that you like really hold on to with this, it would be this one. Mm hmm. Because treating one another with love and respect. Like, we often times I’ll just confess, like when I read the Bible, a lot of times I think about the relationships that are closest to me, like my husband or my kids that are still living in the home or whatever, right? But little do we think about the relationships that we’re building or the relationships that are, like, maybe a little bit more extended, right, where it’s the in-laws, like even me thinking about my in-laws right? And like treating them with the same kind of humility and more significant than yourself. That’s a hard one to to swallow. A hard pill to swallow is a good old term from Grammy. Caroline and I. If you know something about us, we have a lot in common.

We do, which is awesome. I am like such a big fan of honestly being like so much like my mother in love. I’m like, This is great. She gets it. There’s so many things that I’ll say or like our terms or the fact that we’re both wearing our little white hats. That’s right. Yes. Oh yeah. If you’re watching

Rumble, you can see Caroline and I were we just slapped

On a little bit of mascara and have our baseball caps or white caps. Is that what you call them? I call them white hats.

My mom was like, Oh, so technically mine’s a mama had.

Yeah, she’s she’s a little more advanced than I am. Mine still just to wipe it. Yeah, but it’s true.

As Andrew was saying, like keeping it is interesting because I feel like in-law relationships get a little second degree treatment, and it really shouldn’t be that way for the daughter in law’s that are listening to this and wanting to be respectful and honoring of your husband’s parents. Think of them is your own parents. You would fight to have a relationship with your own parents. You would have a fight to be in relationship with your own family because you’re aware that they’re going to play a role in your life, your husband’s life, because clearly they raised whoever you married, which means there should already be a baseline of respect there. The fact that they have raised a spouse that you would commit the rest of your life to means that there is already an honoring happening because they did something that you’re benefiting from,

Which is that you are attracted to,

Well, I think you’re trying to do.

So it’s like they’ve already done that for you. Base level, whether they’re an excellent in in love to have or not means they’ve already done something and they’ve put in work and time and prayers and tears over this person that you now get to enjoy. And that is a massive benefit. So looking at it through that and then being like, OK, would I not fight to have my own mom in my life and keep a healthy relationship within her between her and I? Absolutely. Because I want to be able to bring my grandbabies back to her and have her be somebody that I trust and have her be somebody that wants to take my kids in. And like, I want the same thing with mom. Like, it does not change. And I feel like it’s really sad how we kind of ostracize in-laws a little bit and are like, Oh, you’re the you’re the in-law. Well, no. She plays such an important role in not only my husband’s life, but now my life because we’re one and I definitely feel like Angie’s daughter. Like, I feel like another topping kid and she’s just taking me under her wing so gracefully. Yes, there’s a different relationship because you haven’t risen from birth. Like she said, you’re trying to get to know them, you’re investing in that relationship, you’re learning how they communicate, how they operate. So you’re just going to have to work harder. But it’s something that is so worth working towards because when you have it, it is so sweet. I don’t know many girls that are like would consider one of their in-laws, their mother and love to be a mentor, to be somebody that they aspire to be like, to be somebody that they respect. Now I was obviously blessed with an insanely good master.

I’m like, Well, you know, you know the token, this is their podcast for crying out loud. You listen to everything they say. They’re awesome.

And a lot of people, I will say, don’t get this. Some people don’t care to do their research, but it’s worth fighting for it, even if it’s something that’s not an easy relationship because all relationships require sacrifice and you shouldn’t think you should have to sacrifice less and expect more within in love. Like that’s just wrong, and you’re going to end up being like drinking the poison and expecting them to die. You’re going to be the one that’s going to be really sad and like, OK, we’re going to have to cut off this relationship or withdraw. And it leaves a hole in your heart when there’s not unity, and it’ll do that in any relationship. So Body of Christ family,

That’s really good. I think that you mentioned something that we need to go over. We talked about a little bit in our conversation in the kitchen about the difference between honoring your parents and obeying them, which is part of the whole leaving and cleaving thing. And this is an important aspect. And Exodus 20 August Rita, I would pass the baton.

I think you mentioned that know I decided to tell you the first verse so you wouldn’t try anymore. See, we’re

Still learning all the things. So Exodus 20, Verse 12 says, Honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land. The Lord, your God is giving you. And, you know, there is a difference a lot of times one of the things that care said in the kitchen when we were chatting about this. So a lot of times people bunch the words obedience and honor and respect together as if they mean the same thing. Mm hmm. But they don’t know. They don’t mean the same thing. And the the biggest difference, I believe from from my perspective, one of the things that I had been thinking about meditating, on reading the word and preparing my heart as my son was about to get married was this concept of him obeying me versus honoring and respecting me because the Bible says to honor and respect your parents even when they don’t deserve it, right? Like that. But it doesn’t say that you have to obey them. Like, for example, if a parent was telling their child to do something that was unbiblical or anti biblical, you would not need to obey that. Like if they’re trying to get you to send, you would not obey that, right? But there’s another aspect of this when you leave and cleave. There is there is something else that shifts in a maturity and in a growing up where obedience to your parents changes.

And so like for Isaac and I, we in our minds don’t expect. Our adult children to obey, like how we would expect our three year old and our six year old to obey us. We do have a healthy expectation of them all to have be honoring and respecting us because that’s something that is unchanging right? And that it’s and it’s important that they would be respecting and honoring and obeying God always right. And so as we were digging into the scripture and looking at like honoring your father and your mother and what that looks like for in-laws, it’s it’s the same because now I’m one of your moms. Yeah, right. But at the same time, what is, you know, Isaac and I say this all the time on our podcast and in our parenting mentor program. If you have a choice to make it easy or hard for your kids to respect you, why not make it easier by living in a way that it’s easier for your kids to respect you living in such a way that it’s easier for them to honor you? And the same goes for obedience like we would want our our younger kids. We always focus on this, John, 14, says. If you love me, you will obey me. We want our kids to obey us because they love us, not because they fear us. And so there’s this element of having to invest in those relationships so that they’re cultivated on the foundation of Christ and on the foundation of love.

And that takes effort. It takes an investment of time, which is what we’re talking about, like relationships like this. Take an investment of time. You have to cultivate a relationship that is loving. Now I just want to say something because many of you listening might go, OK, but what do you do if you’ve been in a relationship because you have been married for four or five years and it’s not going well, and maybe you don’t feel like you or your mother in law or your father in law have cultivated a relationship that is founded on love? And can I just say the communication goes a long way? Yeah. Just even sharing your heart, asking your mother in law out for a cup of coffee, and saying, first of all, I just want to say, I love you and you share with them your heart’s desire for your relationship. That alone can go a really, really long way. Hmm. If you have a humble heart posture, even if they don’t, that will convict them and change the relationship drastically just by obeying what scriptures we’ve read honoring your mother and father, treating others as if their interests were more important than your own. Those two things in an in-law relationship go

A long way. You know, a

Really long way. And so how many one others are there in scripture that we could literally go? I really wish this was part of my relationship with them, so I’m just going to try to do this and lead by example. That’s what we’re all called to do in all of our relationships. But a lot of times, like I said, we think about our relationship with our spouse or our relationship with our kids and we or a relationship with friends. How many people treat their friends better than they treat their family? That’s not OK. We need to be the same in private as we are in public, right? So I hope that that is an encouragement to you. But we want to jump into a few other important bullet points. So when we’re talking about being what we want, we talk about investment.

Yeah, we talk about communication.

The next thing we wanted to bring up was boundaries.

Boundaries are important. Boundaries honestly solve a lot of communication problems when there are boundaries in play. And then there’s a mutual respect, which we kind of already talked about. When there’s a mutual respect, there’s an investment. So there’s a foundation and then there’s boundaries. It creates really clear communication because you know what the boundaries are. Why do you create any sort of boundaries for your kids? Because then if they do go outside the boundaries, then they understand what comes next. It’s not like, Oh, now we have a big misunderstanding. They knew where the boundaries were. They went outside the boundaries. They know what to expect if that happens, which means either a conversation or some sort of discipline. Now that’s was kids. The same thing applies in an adult relationship. If I lay down a boundary, somebody steps over boundary and apology might be necessary. A conversation might be necessary. But they knew that something was out of place because we’ve talked about it and we’ve been like, Hey, and being open with your boundaries instead of being like, OK, this is something we want because I know Austin and I talk a lot about like we had a planning date, little meeting thing, and I was like, What kind of boundaries do we want to have with our friends, with our with our house? What kind of door do we want to have? Do we want to have a revolving door? Or do we want to have one where we’re like, we have boundaries or

Even boundaries with your phones? Oh, we did that.

We put our phones to bed outside our bedroom because it’s like, I’m not going to invite the whole world into our personal space and our personal lives. And so we put our beds, phones to bed like outside over Austin’s desk, and it creates a boundary to where we know that if a phone is inside the bedroom, we both know that a boundary is being crossed and there’s an ability to be like, Hey. Obviously, boundaries are sometimes going to get ignored, and that’s OK. Or forgotten about or misinterpreted, and you can be like, Hey,

Come alongside them. This was a boundary we put up.

Can we please respect this and can you go put your phone out and then we it clears up communication. It’s not like, what are you talking about? We’ve never talked about this. What we’ve always had our phones that are but there’s none of that going on because we’ve set clear boundaries

And you set them by communicating like I even think about like the very first month that you guys were married, just communicating with us about what your heart’s desires were for the very first month that you guys were in transition of learning what it meant to be married and to be a married couple like you had mentioned to both dad and Megan, just a few other people like, Hey, we just really want to just be us for a month. Mm hmm. And that was really important, especially to Austin, I think. And that was like a thing. And so communicating, though, made it easier for us so that we didn’t then have, like hurt feelings. If we invited you over for dinner and you do, you know to me. And so like, it helps you when you have boundaries or you have desires like that and you and your communicated to and you know what their why is it makes it so much easier to be supportive and so much easier to be like backing that and going, Yeah, that is good. That is such a great goal. I think I even told you I wish Dad and I would have no did that. We could have done something like that because there is so many different transitions that are happening when you’re getting married for the first time.

And this is like a good tip, even like to recommend to the younger couple because they may be feeling this like feeling a need to do something like that, but not even verbalizing it, not even knowing what the need is. There’s just too much. Too many family dynamics are changing all at once, potentially, and there might feel overwhelmed. And I wonder sometimes if that’s one of the things that scares so many people from even wanting to get married today is that there’s so many potential relationship changes and just transitions. They don’t know how to navigate it or even understanding that they can have. Like goals and boundaries and communicate about these things and be like, we’re going to move forward and we’re going to make progress and we’re going to do this, you know? And I think that it’s such a healthy thing and it’s going to be one that’s going to be needed. Even like eventually when you guys have a baby postpartum, like it took me five babies to be able to say, I need six weeks of not a lot of guests and not going anywhere.

Yeah, do you know what I mean?

Like, I just need to transition with my baby and like nurse and rest and all those things and like. But how much better were my postpartum? Once I was finally taking care of me and the baby and my family holistically like getting our new groove, we just added a new family member and I’m healing. It’s OK to say no, and I’m sharing that with you guys, because a lot of you, a lot of those questions that come to us are regarding big family transitions, like adding a new baby or a son getting married or or like. I know those are two very, extremely different seasons of life, and sometimes people have them at the same time like I did.

I’m going to say, unless you have like nine kids, then you might experience that. It just hit me differently.

But yeah, but in reality, like, it literally does not matter what the transition is. Communicate. Boundaries have mutual respect for one another by being willing to say, Hey, I think we just need this. And this is why

When I think mom, having had done boundaries in her life even with her postpartum like she just said, gave her real understanding for like, here’s another female who’s feeling a little overwhelmed and need some space in her life. And there was that like understanding of like, Oh, I did that in a season of my life too. Yeah. Why don’t you take that? Because it was healthy for me. I think it will be healthy for you. And when you communicate, you have the support and support goes such a long way, especially as newly married couples. It’s going to be the same thing when we have a baby, when we have any time, there’s transition. Like Mom said, when there’s support there from both people, it’s like, Oh, wow, this is awesome. You don’t feel like you’re alone and you feel like they understand. And then we weren’t sitting down there in Boise Way, far away from the family going. We don’t know if they’re like, they don’t like that. We’re not hanging out with them. Like, I knew that mom and dad said, like, we understand. Don’t worry about you and

Go for it. Yeah.

And that doesn’t mean they didn’t extend an invite to make sure we knew we were welcomed back whenever we were ready. They weren’t like, OK, well, if they’re going to be that way, we’re going to. We’re going to be that way. You know, like, it’s really easy to get tit for tat in relationships like that and be like, OK, if you’re going to want space, we’re going to take you to extreme and just not invite you at all. Yeah, because there were

A few things within that first month, like even I think about Solomon’s birthday and like, there were just a few like someone had invited our family over and said, Oh, even Caroline and Austin are invited. And I was like, Well, I think they want a month, but I’ll just send the invitation out so they know they were invited because I know it feels good to know when you’re invited, even if you can’t go, Yeah. So if I feel that way, how much more is my new daughter in love going to feel who’s in a new city and just getting to know people and probably feels alone at times, right? Like even if they do say no, at least she knows she was wanted, and that’s a good thing. So the next thing we’re going to really rattle off here is why you possibly have a bad relationship. Ok, this is like deep heart, introspective time, so get ready for some exhortation because we have three bullet points here. One is, are you approachable or are you unapproachable? The second one is, do you have a teachable heart or are you prideful and have an independent spirit? And the third thing is, are you humble? And so we’re going to dive into those things being unapproachable. This is more one that I think I could speak more towards, because I think that this is something that, like the mother in law, father in law really cultivates and leads in in the sense of are are are you approachable for your daughter in love or send in love to come and confront you on something or even ask you a question? Or do they feel like they need to already know everything they’re walking on eggshells or they’re not good enough, or they’re never going to measure up? And the reason why I’m bringing up those are very different things.

I get that some of those things are similar, but some of them are very different because being an approachable can come from a few different places. One, it could come from a legalistic home. If someone is raising their family in a very legalistic environment and one of their children get married, the end loves are going to sense that same tension of potentially walking on eggshells. And it shouldn’t feel like that. It shouldn’t be that way. If you want to have a relationship where your daughter in love is coming to you and asking you for a recipe for something that she knows her now husband loved when he was growing. Up or for help with medicine, or I don’t even know, like if she’s going to ask for anything, you have to be approachable and the approachable illness. I don’t even know if that’s a word. You guys are probably laughing at me, but your ability to go with it, your ability to be approachable. Really, a lot of it comes from like a culture that you’ve even cultivated within your family and what she has sensed being there. And so like, do your other kids like, here’s a good evaluation tactic. Do your other kids feel like they can come to you and ask questions? Do they do that regularly? And if they don’t, because you’re constantly saying no all the time, you might want to switch that up.

Just a little hint there. Wink, wink.

That’s right. But I do think that it’s really important that we evaluate and go. Am I a person that is approachable? Like, am I friendly? Or am I kind of more quiet and reserved? Do do I need to go out of my way instead of blaming my personality, right? Oh, maybe you’re more introverted and you’re like, Well, I’m just introverted. This is how I am. Well, what is what is the most giving loving thing that you can do in that relationship for your daughter and love if you are introverted? To step out of your comfort zone, be the bigger person and try to be what she needs you to be right. And the same goes for someone who maybe is more extroverted. If you have an introverted daughter in love, you’re going to have to kind of calm things down a little bit and be quiet longer to let her talk. Or, you know, there’s just we have to be respectful of other people just in general. And again, it goes back to the Philippines, too. In my mind. But Carol, why don’t you speak about the next one

Having a teachable heart? This is a good thing to have. It’s definitely something that may not is always something that everybody works on. Whether you’re in any season of life, we’re all wanting to have a teachable heart. We should all at least desire to have a teachable heart. But this really comes from a position of Am I going to be a person filled with pride thinking that I know best, especially when it comes to being a daughter in love who’s only been married two months and has a wonderful family that has shown fruit that has shown that they have something that they can biblically add, both mentally to us, spiritually to us, physically with us. They show that they have raised a family, they have fruit. So coming to them and having the humility to be like, I want to know and not being like, OK, I’ve moved out, I’ve gotten married, I’ve done the thing now I’ve got. This is really hard for a mother in love because she’s going to watch you learn everything the hard way you learn things. Two ways you either learn by somebody having gone before you and getting to be like, Hey, mom, you’ve

Already done this healthy or

You’ve had to deal with. Maybe Austin’s having a reoccurring thing that he had when he was younger, and I’m like, Dude, we never dealt with this in my family coming here and being like, I need to know what’s going on because I never dealt with this with any of my siblings or my mom never treated us like this. Like How? How can I help, you know? But I had to ask. I had to be willing to be like, I don’t need to come across as a know it all. I don’t need to come across as I have it all together. And it sometimes it’s intimidating coming into a new family and being like, What are they going to think of me if I don’t know what this is? That can be kind of scary. It can be kind of vulnerable, can be kind of open. It can be like, I don’t know any time you’re saying, I don’t know to another person, there has to be a sense of humility there and being like, I’m going to lay aside the pride of what they’re going to think of me, of needing to have all the answers and coming in and being like, I have a teachable heart. I want to know. I want to grow. I want to. And I always want to be a person like that, reading books, listening to podcasts, listening to.

But I mean, some of the things that are have the most wisdom are standing right in front of you, and you won’t even give them the time of day to share it with you. And it’s really sad that so many people, I feel like, just kind of bypass their parents and their in-laws and are kind of like, Yeah, OK, whatever your family. And then they go to outside sources. Oh, well, I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do this when their parents that have either parented them or have parented their spouse are sitting there going, Why won’t you just ask us? We’ve been through this like, you don’t have to learn by making your own mistakes and then having to clean up all the pieces. We did that. We know. So just like, ask us. But it comes from if you want to have an open relationship with your parents and don’t want to feel like they’re pushing things on you. You have to be willing to ask, which means you have to have to have to have a teachable heart. And then it puts them in a position where they feel like. They’re wanted. They’re loved, they’re needed, they can be helpful, and that is what. A mother in love, a father in love wants to feel.

Yeah, I mean, I’m just even thinking about the tightest two role that God commands the older women to teach the younger women how to love their husbands and children and be busy in the home. Mm hmm. And if if the younger generation is not coming to the older generation and valuing them, then it’s difficult because then it’s like this. It’s almost like the tightest twos are trying to like force it and that’s not going to work. So there has to be a teacher ability. One of the verses that we were going to share with you guys is First Peter five five, which says, likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders, clothe yourselves. All of you with humility toward one another for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. I love that in here it says, clothe yourselves, all of you. It’s not just the younger clothe yourselves, all of you with humility toward one another. And this is important because a lot of times people, a lot of younger families, will not go to the in-laws for advice because they actually don’t see the approachability in the in-laws, because there’s pride in the the in-law. Yeah, like the older generation, too. And so this is a really important thing that we need to recognize both in both generations. It doesn’t matter what age you are, we are all to be clothed with humility and consider one another. We’re in humility towards one another and go, Hmm. So maybe if they’re not asking me about this, maybe I need to really reflect on that because. Maybe there isn’t fruit in my life, because the reality is, is as Christians, we all need to be wise who were asking things from right.

We’re not going to look at somebody, whether it’s your mother in law or father in law or a perfect stranger, and ask them for wisdom in something if they don’t have fruit in that thing. Yeah. Does that make sense like common sense? Biblical wisdom will tell you to judge the fruit first and then ask for the wisdom, right? And so I’m not what I don’t want you to misunderstand. We’re not saying you should only and always be learning from your mom and your mother in law. No, not at all. Like God’s word exhorts the younger to go to Titus to men and women, not just your mom and your mother in love or your father in love and your father. But there is an element that you have to use wisdom and you have to judge that. And so like for me, I have to be I’m constantly like evaluating, Am I walking in a way where my kids would want to mimic this? Like this is that’s just a basic thing that we teach in the parenting program. Are we perfect? No. Do we mess up all the time? Yes. Do we repent of that and try to fix things and try to be more patient, more consistent in our parenting? All the things like, yeah, like because that’s what God’s word commands us to do and we want to obey him, but we’re not going to be perfect. And so when we walk in that open transparency, even with our daughter and loves where they’re looking at us and going, Oh, I probably wouldn’t do things like that or whatever.

But at the same time, they have grace because they see you like knowing what’s right and pursuing that and they see your heart’s desire to be obedient. That’s what family is about, and that’s what’s beautiful. That’s what’s God honoring. But you both have to have approachability, comes from having humility and being willing to say, I’m not doing it right. I’m really tired or I’m sick or I’m whatever it is or I’ve been. I failed at this and I want to be better. And for the younger generation, it’s having a teachable heart and a different kind of way that’s like, I don’t know what would you do? Or I’ve tried this in this and this, and it’s not working. Am I doing something wrong? What would you try next? And so sometimes these relationships, like there can be tension because we don’t know each other’s hearts. And so if there’s one thing that we could just really end with, I want to encourage you guys to be grace giving and to look at the heart intent as much as you can. It’s really hard. The Bible says that man looks outward appearance and God looks at the heart. So you got to have time to talk and cultivate that relationship. Go out for coffee if you need to spend time together. Like, I even just think about when we went to pick up your sofa and just Caroline took me out for Thai food

And we spent the day together driving around, picking up furniture dresser over here and we had a crime baby in the

Car part of the time. Bless her heart. She’s trying to help Sandra in the back, but it was a bonding experience for us, for sure, and I’m honored that she asked me. I remember when she asked me if I would be willing to drive out to Boise. And I’m and I was so excited.

I was like, She wants a relationship with me and

I was so excited. But like, I know that some of you guys might think that asking those kinds of things would be a burden. But it’s not. It’s absolutely not. It’s those times together that build the relationship where you can talk, serve one another, love one another and really just build a relationship. So I hope you guys were encouraged. This was super

Fun. This was super fun. This is a bonding

Experience for us. Yeah. On a podcast, if your mother in law, that’s one I really go, Yeah, and it’s it’s so cool because even just listening to Angie speak, I’m like, Wow, I got a good one. I got such a good one.

I love this lady so much. She literally has taken so much of the homesickness about moving away. A lot of people have asked me that love like, how’s it been being so far away? Because my mom is like one of my best friends absolutely hands down. And a lot of that has been kind of like dissolved by how. Our summit is to have live close to a mother in love where I’m like, I feel like as if I were one of her own, and it’s honestly, I feel like Angie is kind of the whole verse of are the is that no, that’s not even a verse. Do unto others. Yes. Yeah, as you would have them do unto you. Sorry. I was like, Is that just a good Bible?

That was such a weird like brain glitch, but it’s doing unto others

As you would have them do unto you. And I feel like so many times she got in my shoes and was like, Oh, if I was a newly married wife, what would I kind of want or what would I desire? And she did that with even how thoughtful her our wedding gifts were and stuff. And it was just like, Wow, you can tell the intentionality that this lady has invested into not only her son, but now me, and it is a massive blessing. So thanks to you, mom, I’m not actually going to take out my hack.

So no thank you.

Well, you guys, we’ve enjoyed this and we hope that you have a great week. Thanks for joining us on the podcast and we’ll see you next time. Happy New Year’s! Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program. Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, we release a video with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

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