Choosing Pursuit

Welcome to Choosing Us. I'm Brittany. I'm Jake and together we're the Logosos. As high school sweethearts, best friends and ultimate long distance survivors. We're talking Dallas, Texas to Japan. We've learned and developed some tools to keep our relationship full of life and fun. If you want to learn how to navigate life while creating the relationship of your dreams, you are in the right place. So whether you're dating, married, navigating long distance like we once did or somewhere in between. We hope we can make you laugh, think outside the box, and dream bigger as we walk alongside you wherever you're at. We'll be hosting you on this journey through honest, unscripted conversations centered on biblical principles. Together we will be embracing the challenges and joys of relationships knowing that though it's not always easy. Choosing us is always worth it. Hello everybody and welcome back to Choosing Us. We are so glad you guys are here. What are you going to say? To say they're choosing us podcasts. Oh, they know they know they're here. They just listen to the trailer. Anyway, honey, what are we talking about today? We are talking about Choosing Us. Do you want to explain our little visual today? Yes, we have an intimacy card deck. It's by best self. And in this card deck, there are several questions which have a plethora of topics in questions to get to know. Are we doing one right now? What are five things on your bucket list? Five things. Okay, well, we are filming this late Sunday night after the Super Bowl. So first one is washing usher live like at a concert, not dancing with you. That was good. That was so good. Really quick, if you're listening to this, my name morning or whenever you're listening to this, uh, 13 years ago, I danced in Super Bowl with usher. So I've shared a field with him. He's super super talented. Would love to see him live. So that's one, I definitely want to do a concert. Is that what it was? Yeah, going out to concert was one. These are no particular order. I want to go to Europe and eat my weight in pasta and wine. Like that's what I want to do. We've been making homemade pasta and homemade bread. Game changer. I don't even know if I'm ever going to really buy it. What was for dinner tonight? Just quick. We had homemade burgers like homemade starts to finish. Aside from growing the lettuce, onion and tomato. I made the buns, made the patties, we made the fries, we bought a cow. No, and what you did. Okay, so you're up super not so rural. Going to a national concert. I would really love to be able to take a month vacation and go somewhere tropical. So practical. Yeah, whatever business we have, be able to have a staff or something that we wouldn't have to, like we could check in if we wanted to, but like if we stopped working for 30 days, it wouldn't fall apart. And like by then we would have a family and stuff. So I would love to be able to take our kids. Bring it talking with your hands on the audio. Sorry. I'm so sorry. That was brilliant. Yeah, I'm excited. Alright, so we're at three. Um, four. I really, I don't know. This is so hard. I know this is not fun. You like to hold me to put you that way we complete five. No, you, this is my question. Just trying to help. Okay, yeah, maybe. No, I wasn't thinking about it. We should go back to Japan at some point. Oh, yes. Oh my gosh. That'd be fun. And I feel like you'd eat so much more. That's debatable. For those who for you who don't know, but Brittany and your family lived in Japan for a while, I got to visit. And at the time, I was very, very picky. You were as picky as you had been before. I was still really picky. That was first time I had shrimp. Was it? It was technically fried prawns. Oh, yeah. Anyway, um, so going to Japan is four. And I think we should go to not Egypt. Moses is real. So yeah, they're that before. Oh, yeah, that would be really, really. Yeah, I got to go to Israel. See the Bible come to life. I hear so many people say when they go to Israel, it's like the Bible in color for them. So I would love to. I love to. This is really cool. Great. So we have our top five anyway. The point of that exercise was this deck is full of bunch of different cards, different categories and this is not sponsored at all. Like we've bought this with our own money. I haven't been sponsored by anybody. I'll accept all your money. And no, there are certain people we will not accept money. Okay. You're right. We have boundaries. Like minded things. Yes. Anyway, the overall goal of this is to get to know your spouse better. Right. Significant other spouse in our case. And then we have a fancy. This looks like I should I could break it. It's a rose, but it's a forever rose. And Jake gets me flowers because I love them even though they die. And there are two sides of the camp when it comes to flowers. Some people like, oh my gosh, it's a romantic. And they're like the practical people who are like, oh my god, they die. Um, but the purpose of that is like, yes, I know they die. And I kind of don't have the greenest them in the world, but flowers like they will die anyways because they've been cut from the root. But Jake will surprise me randomly because of, you know, Valentine's days coming up. But like on a random day, he'll bring home flowers because he knows I like it. And he knows that speaks to my heart. And so today's episode is a little pursuit and never letting that die because your relationship is a hopefully you're in you're playing for keeps. And you don't want to lose that spark after dating. It can be so easy to get into a rut into, I mean, we're coming up. We just celebrated four years, Married. And 10 years together. There we go. Let's try not to be too bad. Um, 10 years together, four years married. And we could like totally be like, yeah, we're past the honeymoon phase, past newlywed phase. We're just going to hit cruise control and just see where life takes us. But that's not where we want to be. I mean, we are truly committed to a forever honeymoon. And we want to, we want to pursue each other consistently. We want to continue learning about each other. And so the whole point of this episode is to share about why, why and how we do that. Yeah. I think we've even seen that in dating too. So, you know, we dated for five years, six years, five years, six years, six years. Six. Six. Is our five year anniversary that we got married. Yeah, but we are friends. I kind of count that for sure. High school dating. So that like cuts the half time. So I'm a little confused. I mean, I'm really, uh, but, um, obviously, we were going to get married. What we in our case did not get married right after high school. We got married after college, after we got some things for going out in life. But we've seen people who, you know, had dated for extended years and, um, kind of, you ain't a stalemate at some point. Yeah. Right. And I think part of that is the pursuit stops. Yeah. You get comfortable. You get complacent. And that eagerness that desire to grow to continue furthering things just stales. Right. And that puts you in a really uncomfortable spot. We've seen those couples sometimes break up because of that or have things really come off. Do you feel like that? And I think this is why people feel like they don't know each other anymore because the pursuit has stopped when, uh, couples get divorced or they're like, I don't know my spouse anymore. You know, it could be a myriad of things like they put the kids first. And so when the kids leave the nest, they don't know their spouse because there's been no pursuit. Like, um, something that was modeled for us for some mentors of ours was yeah, they say, you know, when they get home from work, mommy first, you know, like before kids came along, the marriage came first. Yeah. And when the kids leave, the marriage is still there. So what that means is the husband would kiss the wife first. Yeah. So the husband would kiss the wife first, you know, the kids would come running up to him, but he would say mommy first. And so he would kiss his wife, their mother. And then he would give the snuggles and, you know, and chain of command in that way. But, you know, what I'm saying is so many couples, um, you can, they, they just lose themselves either in kids in work in whatever. And even us, like we could be in a spot where we're growing and building and scaling our businesses to where we could throw date and out the window. Now we do something most couples don't and we actually do work together and we have a bit have businesses together and we, we enjoy it. You know, we, we kind of came to this conclusion that we're like, I think we're workaholics, but we enjoy it. You know, we've heard it said as work. Integrated life. Yeah, work, work, life, integration versus work, life, balance, because, because our life is so, you know, we have this podcast and we have this brand we're building and we have our businesses. It can be hard to, um, separate and have hard boundaries. And we don't want those because we truly love working together and doing everything together, but that doesn't mean that pursuit stops. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I'm bringing it back as far as like, for me, this was, um, new to me, right? So going back to, how is it going to first started our relationship? Um, this, I'm not going to go into the super depths of this conversation. I know where you're going. The multiple conversations I have with Brittany's father. However, um, but you start, you were pursuing from the very beginning. Yes, there was a, um, Brittany was the first in her, of her parents, children to, and the oldest. Yes, to, to date and all that stuff. And so it was kind of like, everybody figuring out a new rhythm at the time. Um, we're all great now. Don't worry. But, but there was a lot of, um, emphasis, specifically Brittany's parents. You know, I was just like, you know, rest standard, standard high school experience. Had a few, I don't know if I had an elementary school girlfriend, probably up third grade I did. Um, and so, you know, just like the standard cultural, like, oh, you're cute. You know, you know, you have a girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All that. I'm going to do things different. Um, but anyway, the, there was a very strong emphasis from Brittany's parents on pursuit, right? Being intentional. a season of dating before we were dating. A season of dating before we were. We had a title for an exclusive all that stuff. And that really helped set the pace. And again, I have no regressor issues. You're looking back now. At the time initially, I was like, you know, like I like her. Just let me date her. You know? Yeah. But I did have a desire to pursue her. And that's something that we've discussed multiple times. I never I never want to miss an opportunity to pursue Brittany. And that's the reason for a lot of our dating perseverance. Right? So Brittany at one point, like I said, moved to Japan with her family. We had recently, we had taken a break at one point. I was I was being really dumb. I was being really dumb in her own words. I said in your own words. You just anyway, I so we had been broken up for a little bit. We had been getting we had actually just officially like gotten back together. Yeah. Popped the question of we be my girlfriend again. And we were together. And then she found out she was moving. And so literally probably within 14 days. Brittany was like, we don't have to do this. Yeah. We don't like we don't I was never going to put that on him. I mean, that like we just come back together. I was not going to be like, yeah, let's totally do a long distance. But me, I was like, it's either going to make her break us. And I don't I saw enough in Brittany that dating is an evaluation period of whether this individual could be your spouse. Yeah. And so I had seen enough in Brittany that she was quote, wifey material, as I said back in the day. But I seriously knew that I didn't want to miss an opportunity to pursue her. Not that she's perfect. Not that she's an idol. And you actually told me that like those were the exact words you said. And I said, okay, well, I'm going to allow you to pursue me. And we'll we'll throw give it a shot. Across the world. Yeah. And so back to the start of our relationship. I think one of the reasons that we got to that point was because of the intentionality and the focus on pursuit on dating, on on making Brittany feels cherished and wanted and and pursued as you know, the really word. Yeah. Do you remember? So there's the two John Eldridge and Stasi Eldridge. Stasi is that very interesting. I don't know. That was her name. Maybe it's Stacy and I just read it as Stasi. I have no idea. But I didn't think it was like, I thought it was different. I don't know. Just like, so I thought it started with the case. Anyways, the husband and wife duo that wrote captivating and while at heart, it's a book series for you to understand like the inner workings of you as a young man. Are you as a young woman? And we actually, yeah, and vice versa. You can read the other coffee just to kind of fully remember captivating, captivating. But I remember in while at heart, it talks about, I spent a long time somewhere at this book, like a dozen years. But the I remember one portion of it was a every man needs a woman to say for something over the signs of you to fight for beauty to fight. Thank you. And so there's in that context, men oftentimes have that desire to fight, to win, to champion, to rescue, you know, and have that kind of heroic archetype. And so in that, there is a opportunity in our day to day lives to live that out and to pursue it. And actually, I think in my experience, it helps fuel that when I successfully surprise Brittany or like, you know, swipe Brittany off her feet or whatever that is that helps fuel like me myself, but it also fuels our relationship, right? What's the women's equivalent of that in the book? Do you remember? Being fought for. I mean, pretty much the exact opposite. Same thing, you know, having someone pursue you and cherish you, you know, lack of a better word, but that's what it is. Yeah. And one of my favorite things that you've done for me, I remember there was one morning where, and I, I'll get into this again, but there was one morning we were newly married. Actually, we were a couple years in, and I was not feeling great. And I think you had gone to the gym, but you had written me a little love note. You would put the weather on the top of the page. Jackie's strike me notes in the morning and put like what the weather outlook was. They have the little, was that the one with the little, like it has like a sunny rainy. Yeah, it was an notebook that had like the weather markings on it. So we put the weather and he just said, Hey, I'm going to the gym right now. I know you're not feeling well, but I can't wait to come home and, you know, just have the day together. And we were probably, it was probably like a Saturday weekend, but you didn't have work. And it was so simple. And I knew who was going to the gym like he told me, gave me kiss and, you know, went on his way. But when I woke up, I felt so loved and seen that, you know, he took time to write me a little, you know, doodle and a love note and tell me the weather, even though I probably wasn't going to go outside. But Jake's done little things like that for me for years now. And I have every, every note Jake's ever written me in a box. And, and, and, and, if you just saw my face, sorry, I get overwhelmed by all the, I'm a little sentimental. And sometimes it drives Jake crazy, but we have a lot of boxes of sentimentals. Another conversation. But I want to, I never want to lose sight of that. And like one day when we have kids, I want to be able to show our kids, you know, that we, that daddy fought for us and for our relationship. And, you know, even when it wasn't easy. And I have like silly stuff from when we were dating in high school. And like I have our like prom curses and bitniers and stuff like that. But I just, my flower stayed good for a long time. Was it proof that you're a bit ner. And then we found it recently and it was like disintegrated. I mean, it's been 10 years. Yeah. I wouldn't like put in a glass box. It was like, literally just a cardboard box. Yeah, we, we didn't like preserve it. That was not Instagram trending when we were in high school. But, you know, as you were just talking, it just, you know, we, we have been through, you know, a lot. But the, the thing that has kept us has been our pursuit of each other. And it goes both ways, you know, like, yes, Jake does pursue me. But same thing for me, I get to figure out how to love my husband better. And one of the things, you know, like going back to when you have Google eyes and you're dating, I quickly learned that Jake's love language was letters. And so even when I would, I would affirmation specifically, sorry, yes, words of affirmation. So I would write him letters when we would be apart, when we would do long distance, when I remember when you went to Israel, I wrote you a couple of letters. Yeah. One for every day you were gone. And, um, and I, I love that too, you know, so just like he writes me notes and stuff. And, you know, that's one practical thing. You know, another thing has a question. Yeah. Do you remember the jar for Japan? Which one? I was like square glass jar. Yeah. And I put a bunch of sticky notes and folded them up. I color coded it somehow. Yeah, you, they were different verses, right? Yeah. Diverses are encouragement or something. Yeah. For you, when you were not feeling great. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, um, so those are little things you can do. I mean, pursuit also looks like for us, we're in a very busy season. We have something Monday, through Thursday, every single night for like the next ever. And we're traveling. We've got traveling this weekend, traveling next month, traveling in April, May, pretty much June, July, the rest of the year. But what it looks like for us is we get out our planner and we plan our date night because we never want that to go to the wayside. Yeah. And sometimes date night is, you know, fancy and we get dressed up and we actually go out to dinner. Sometimes it's, hey, let's make this half business, half us connect time. Yeah. And sometimes it's like, let's just go to shields and just walk around and see what's new. Yeah. But we, yeah. And we, but we make time for each other because we want to connect and we never want to lose our relationship or our marriage in the midst of busy. Yeah. That's good. So I think taking it a turn a little bit, getting more into the dating world. I can definitely speak on the guy side, but I want to hear your thoughts first on I think from what we've seen, I'll just start with the guest. So I think a lot of times guys will not pursue girls very well. And I've heard it said so many ways to somebody. I'm sorry, I'm filtering a lot of this unscripted podcast in my brain. But, you know, there's, there's a lot of content on dating in the Christian world and on, you know, dating and searching all those things. But one of the consistent threads I see so often is that guys aren't asking girls out, you know, guys aren't having that boldness there, you know, and for whatever reason it is, but they're ultimately just being passive and timid. Yeah. And that is, that's not going to help your odds. You literally cannot hit if you don't swing. Well, that, but also like it just, it takes away from your, I mean, I don't know if integrity is right word, but from your, from your, it's gonna decrease the, it's gonna set you back starting your relationship if you're not the one start and yeah, right? That doesn't mean, you know, it can't be, you know, it can't be good or anything like that. But at the end of the day, like guys have to start initiating more. Guys have to be the pursuer and this is in dating and this is in marriage and this is, you know, going forward. You want to know a secret of how Jake got my number? Okay. Honey, why don't we go to, we're talking about you. But I'm telling you an example, like Jake, for my number. It's not that he waited around for me to give it to him. We'd message it a little bit on Twitter because Instagram was not the hot place to be. -I sleep in her DMs. Before sliding in DMs was a thing. -Yeah. And he had an Android. I brought him back over the iPhone world-sized ori. And he was like, "Hey, I can't see your emojis on my phone. Can I get your number?" -Shoot, guys. Smooth. -So I don't really. Was that a pick of line? Was that true? -It wasn't 100% true. -Okay. Just making sure. -Because there was. I don't know. I couldn't see it on for. -Anyways, Jake put himself out there and he asked for a number. And I guess the rest is history. -Yes. And. -Back on the tracks. -Back on the train. Back on the tracks. So bottom line is, yes, women, and like you said, you do pursue me. There's various ways, like, you know, she's written notes, encouragements. You know, just for me oftentimes. And for I think a lot of other guys too, just hearing "I'm proud of you. I respect you. I, you know, happily follow you." Those are things that you're doing a good job. That's probably the thing that most men need to hear. -Love and respect. I mean, men need respect. And really quick, back to the dating thing. It is not fun being rejected. You know, like if you put yourself out there from a guy's perspective and she shoots you down. No, of course, that's not great to hear or feel. But it gives you practice, you know, like you're getting your reps in. Not that you're going to go ask every girl out you ever see. -Now you get it, get it sales. -You get a bunch of nose until you get a yes. -Yes. Ask a lot of questions. -So you just have to get better at either reading people or figuring out what your type is or self-awareness of art. -Couple art. -Are you ready for that? But that's not this episode. We'll talk about that another episode. -Focus right now is pursuit. -Yes. -And so bottom line is I think oftentimes men are too passive. And you'll see, I mean, I say this all the time, but man's first sin, I think, was passivity. And we are just naturally bent towards that. But it's something we need to fight. We, you know, men can be, mostly opposite passive, aggressive, healthy, aggressive, a healthy initiative. And so that's something that's important, especially in your relationship. Because Brittany wants to feel pursuit. So where I was going with that is it's very easy. And this has happened because we're busy and we're doing things. We schedule date night. We don't schedule what's going to happen. We get in the car. This literally just happened the other day. And where are we going to go? -Don't know. -Don't know. And we're like figuring out. We're having a conversation about it. And that's not ideal. Like I said, it happens. -It's not ideal, but what we do instead of sitting in that, I don't know. Okay, we're not going to have a date night. I just tell Jake start driving and we'll figure it out. -We'll pick something out. But on the opposite end, there have been dates where I've said, I've told Brittany, get dressed, wear this. -Get dressed, wear this. We have a reservation to eat. -Yeah. And that's all I know. -That is all she knows. But how does like what's the difference in your experience in those two situations? -I like both. Obviously, it is much more fun when they're surprised. I love surprises. I am terrible at ruining them. But when a man takes initiative, it's attractive. Like that's really hot to me. So I love when he does that because it's like I can just sit back and be treated like a princess. Now, the times when it's like, you know what, just getting the car and start moving, the reason why I have Jake drive is because we just need to take action. Any forward action is better than sitting in your funk or talking yourself out of a date or in this goes with anything. This goes with business. This goes with when you're pursuing goals and dreams. This goes with even going to the gym. Just continuing to do your reps versus just laying on the mat. Like, okay, well, I'm not going to do it. You know what? The time's going to pass anyways. So you can either, we're big into-- -Jump in the cold plunge. -Yeah, jump in the cold plunge. We're big on what? We're just going to jump and we'll build our wings on the way down and hopefully not crash. I mean, I said it to you today, you know, we're working on some stuff. And I'm like, this plan is not crashing. We're building our wings because we're going to fly. Like, there's no other option, but to fly. And that's how I feel about our relationship and our marriage. Like, there are times when it's like, we don't have anything planned, but we have the time blocked off on our schedule. And we are not going to let that time go wasted because it's important for our marriage and the health of our marriage. And like, the future we want to pursue on another and be intentional with our time. And so that being said, I think one of the most important things is how to pursue one another, right? Every individual is different. Every person is going to be different. Everyone's going to have different lovely languages, but I think there are some common themes and I think science has proven there's some common themes amongst differences. And so one of those things is, and this leans into the last point I made, but generally speaking, women's number one need is what? -Security. -Security and safety. Right? And so when you have, when a man will create that like security of the evening, right? -Yeah. -It is. -You have expectations on what to wear, what time to be ready, you know, what the temperature is going to be maybe if that's relevant. And you know, that dinner's already set. Like, everything's already set for you. -Yeah. -Your brain, I know, Brittany. And her brain is not like pinballing anymore. It's just like, yeah. -Yeah. I do want to bring up one more, one other like left side kind of thing. The other night we were super busy and we had already planned a date night in. And I was out all day. I had a couple appointments. And we already had planned that we were going to do a date night in and make pasta. So make homemade pasta back to our little Italy trip. But we had been kind of experimenting and we wanted to make ravioli's and it was going to be really fun. We were like forward to it. We like ordered the whole ravioli tablet and everything. And I came home and you know, we're starting to get dinner ready. And I looked at Jake and I was like, his hair was done. He got dressed for me. And this was a home date night. But like, I was already dressed and I had my hair and makeup done. And Jake could have easily like been in sweats because you were home all day. -Swed shirtless, you know. -And but he came, but I came home and he like had a button down on and his hair was done. And like his gel was in and I don't know if you put cologne on. But I was like, okay, it's day night. And what did you say to me when I got home and I asked, you know, did you get dressed? -I don't know what I said. -You don't have to say the exact thing. But like, why did you do that? -Well, the bottom line is because I wanted you to feel pursued. And like, it was important. I don't, I have no idea what I said though. Do you know what I said? -I mean, you said something to those lines, but I wanted you to share that. Like you didn't, I didn't tell him to get dressed. -Pakwiz. -Yeah, see how it feels when you put on a spot. No, but I didn't tell you to do that. You did that on your own because you wanted it to feel special and like, date night. -Yeah, I mean, it's just so easy just to like go through the motions. And there's a song that's playing in my head. I don't want to go through the motions. But at the end of the day, like we just, I think you have to live out of an opera to a perspective of gratitude. My nose is so itchy, I'm sorry, I just keep scratching and itching. I think we just have to live out of a perspective of gratitude because like, at the end of the day, genuinely, we don't know how long we're here. -Yeah. -Right? We don't know what's, I mean, we don't, let them fear, we don't anticipate anything drastic or crazy happening. Sorry, I talk to my hands too. I hit the thing. But at the end of the day, I don't want to miss an opportunity to pursue bringing it. I want to miss an opportunity to capitalize on a date night. Even if it's day night in, I personally prefer to go out for one reason, primarily, dishes. I can't stand dishes. Like, the date isn't the fun part. Like, I'm cooking. All of that eating is great dishes. It's just like, ah, it's the worst. But at the same time, that was specifically why we like, we could not go out. And so, I just, it's important to still make those nights in meaningful, still make, take those moments, those opportunities to build your relational bangs, to build your relationship and invest in each other. And because, like I said, I mean, like you said, the time's going to happen in regards to, right? You can have a crappy date night. I mean, you could have a no date night. You could have a, a subpar where you are both left feeling wanting. Like, it could have been better. Or you could do your best to knock the socks off the other person. And you see how you could surprise them, you know, and, and make them feel pursued, wanted love, respected, you know, whatever. -Yeah. And there are ways you can make date night fun too. Like, I've seen things and maybe we should implement this too. Like, writing every restaurant you like to go to on a popsicle stick and color coordinating it by price point and then pulling one. -I don't know. Did I tell you about my date guide? -No. -Oh, yes. -At one point. -Yeah. -Oh my gosh. When did you do this? -This was like, it was years ago, but it was, it was pre-marriage. But I had built, maybe it was like just married. But I had this huge, like, it wasn't scratchy. It was like a document of like, you have like 16 categories of, I don't know, you have like four categories of type of food, right? So like Chinese, Thai, Italian, American, right? And then you had locations. And so basically, I was like, I was like, maybe I should build this into an app. I was trying to do it all. But then you have like locations. So like, how far do you want to go? What type of atmosphere do you want? Do you want outdoor indoor, like all those things and try to like pinpoint the, like, you know, the date night? Just because a lot of times you will lapse into a, you know, settle into just something that you- -Rude, let's repeat. -It's easy or routine because you don't want to go through all of the obstacles and, you know, everything I just said. And routine is okay until it's not like if you're in your routine and you love going to get Mexican food every Friday night with the same You know dish and chips and salsa and margarita like that's totally fine until you get complacent And then it's not I know Jake's like really one I just is also Black bean dip I'm like right right now Um, but we love this way so has amazing black bean dip like Don't treat anyways, but that's fine until you get complacent and then you just stop pursuing one another You know like that that can be great to get you in the in the mix of Getting a regular date night in but when it becomes you know, just routine and regular and then you stop You know having the deep conversations then then that's when you know you might want to pull in another idea. Yeah All right, so we have Think talks are good I was gonna say gambit is anything Took the whole game it uh the whole gamut gamut here's a gambit We're gonna just stop using that phrase. We have talked a holistic conversation. I believe it's anything else we want to leave The choosing answers with Pursuit is fun Don't think of it as a Like you have to do it. It it is fun. Allow it to be fun. It can feel Sometimes it can feel like oh like we're not getting this or it's hard to learn something new But when you look at it with a fresh perspective and with fresh eyes like I get to learn more about my spouse I get to be drawn closer to my boyfriend a girlfriend You know if we are figuring out if we're compatible for marriage if you look at pursuit in that perspective with you know A posture of gratitude and you're grateful to be able to be on a journey with this person Then it will be fun. You know, I think I think when we When we pursue one another and we find ways it's it's almost like now We kind of think of it as a game like can we not that we want to outdo each other? We don't use that language even though we're competitive But you know just like how can I surprise Jake and how how can I love him better and get him you know get him good and surprise him better than he surprised me the last time Yeah Yeah, I think I'm just gonna start talking because I have a lot of thoughts But you said when you feel stuck you just need to move right and so I heard this in the concept of chess So if you're trying playing you know, you're playing a game of chess with somebody and you're you're What's it called you're you're at a stalemate right no matter what move you make Sent like one of your pieces is gonna get taken yeah, sometimes you just gotta move yeah like like at this at There's sometimes in life where our only decision is going to be something that costs us something yeah, and that's okay But when you Because when you move you will have a different perspective you have different resources You may have like you're gonna see something differently you're gonna and I think just It's it's really easy to get stuck in the get complacent and sometimes honestly You may make a move to pursue your significant other spouse and it may flop And that's okay. You can learn from that I mean, it's just like the principle of you win or you learn yeah, you know, there's there's no losing Yeah, and so my encouragement to each of you would just be to one Take that move to pursue your spouse do something different than you have it then you you know That you haven't done in a long time or that you haven't ever done like do something that shows that you are willing to pursue them because pursue oftentimes will cost you something you know and that's Okay, because a lot of times we don't want to sacrifice we didn't you know we very Close arms you're very like trying to protect everything, but when you Open up when you when you are willing to be vulnerable and I'll ask them in a costume. That's when it'll like that's That's the most risk the most reward right yeah, so you may get hurt But you may end up taking your relationship three levels further right yeah And so that's what I would just encourage you with is having that willingness to step out and Even if it flops to not get discouraged in that but to keep choosing pursuit keep choosing to pursue your spouse regardless of or seeing if Significant other regardless of the Short term because in the long term it will be beneficial. Yeah, but Oftentimes when you're in a rut you just have to figure out like how do you get back into a rhythm right how do you get and back into Having your you you and your spouse like at each other with Google ads because there's there's seasons for season the values season on the mountain top but You don't want to stay in the valley and adopt yeah the Language of the valley if you yeah absolutely. Yeah, one other thing I just want to leave you guys with is You know as you are pursuing you're making investments into your relational bank So even though it might feel like a sacrifice or it might feel like there's no ROI in this like immediate moment That pursuit over time is going to give you a track record in your relationship that then you're like Oh wow look how far we've come you know and I even see that with us too like we've continually made made things fun and You know there are times when it's not so fun and you you've told me like okay We're getting out of the house and we're just gonna go do something whether it's get ice cream or a strawberry line made Which has flopped for a couple times Then then we go to Walmart and we go get some else And we just we we make it happen and we make it work because we know our relationship needs it So we hope this has been encouraging to you. Is there anything else you want to leave them with? No, I was debating when you said that I was debating like going into a whole another Spiel but I think we could say that for next episode keep you on your toes. Okay. Well, we've already got some works And something in the works for next episode, but thanks for joining us for this one We hope to see you on an next episode if this has been helpful share it with somebody Make sure you're following us on Instagram to keep up to date with what's happening. What do you want to say? What's this week? What? What's this week? This week is Valentine's Day so make sure make sure you a pursue Your significant other so buy the roses or the flowers or whatever their paper flowers are chocolate candy if Valentine's Day is important to your spouse Do something on Valentine's Day. Yes, it's not do something day after because it'll be cheaper I like how you're thinking honey Anyways, I'll have a blessed one. Have a good one. Have a good one. We'll see you next time