The Marriage Fight No One Talks About | Bruce & Maria Goff

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson; Podcast Transcript

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The Marriage Fight No One Talks About

Guests:Bruce and Maria Goff

Release Date:July 8, 2025

Maria:One night Gloria is having a meltdown and Bruce goes in there to deal with the situation and I hear it escalate.

Bruce:I’m just like, “You need to calm down.”

Maria:I’m like, “Oh, that’s going to work.”

Bruce:And I don’t know why that made me so mad.

Maria:It made him so mad.

Ann:Why did it make you mad?

Bruce:Mad; I was just—

Dave:Because you’re tired.

Bruce:I’m like, “I got up. I’m in here at least trying. And that’s the remark I get. Not like, ‘Hey, thanks for giving it a try.’”

Maria:He says, “I’m desperate.” And that made me mad. I’m like, “You’re desperate. I have another baby that’s going to be up in an hour needing to be fed. Get him calmed down.”

Bruce:There you go.

Dave:I got yawning going on.

Maria:Bless your heart. You must be so tired.

Bruce: Speaking of Sleepless in Orlando.

Dave:We are. We got the Goffs back with us, Bruce and Maria. And they’re talking about Sleepless in the Goff House because they have four girls, ages, what are they again?

Maria:Three months up to age nine.

Dave:So do you guys sleep? Do they sleep? Has that always been hard?

Bruce:I sleep.

Dave:You sleep?

Bruce:I sleep.

Maria:He sleeps.

Dave:He really does?

Maria:He’s the only one sleeping.

Ann:Does that make you resentful though?

Maria:Yes.

Ann:Me too!

Maria:Yes.

Ann:I was so resentful.

Dave:Don’t you hit him like Ann used to hit me and say, “You got to get up.”

Maria:I don’t because I know one of us needs to survive the next day.

Ann:Okay, so you have expectations of Bruce surviving.

Dave:Yeah, but the next day, he leaves the house.

Maria:Not always.

Dave:Oh no.

Bruce:But I can’t take a nap at work, or I’m not supposed to.

Dave:Well, she can’t either.

Maria:Okay, but this is something that has come to me this year. I was like having a hard time asking him sometimes to help during the night or whatever, but then it occurred to me: I can’t take a nap when I’m working the next day either.

Dave:No, never.

Ann:Exactly.

Maria:There was a time before we had four children where sometimes I could get a nap, but now we’re at a place where I can’t usually get a nap.

Bruce:Okay, but unless I’m mistaken, I feel like since we’ve had the newborn, I’m expected to get up with the three older ones.

Maria:Yes.

Bruce:Right. I mean that’s at least the expectation.

Maria:This is true, yes.

Ann:Alright, we need to give parents some help of just kind of practical help on how to bring peace to a gospel-centered home when you’re getting no sleep at all.

Bruce:See, that’s what we’re here for.

Ann:Yes. Can you please tell me?

Bruce:Yes, so—

Dave:I sleep really good.

Bruce:We’re here to ask you guys help us—

Maria:How do we do that?

Bruce:How do we do this?

Dave:Well, don’t do what I did. I literally used to fake that I was asleep.

Bruce:I can’t believe that, Dave.

Dave:Have you done that?

Ann:Have you ever done that?

Dave:You just said you really are asleep.

Maria:I’ve done it, and it made me so mad. You know why? Because I still ended up getting up. I waited and I waited, and I waited, and he wasn’t getting up so finally I was like, “Well fine, then I guess I have to get up anyways.”

Dave:I think she did same thing.

Ann:I would whisper in his ear, “I know you’re awake.” And I would be so mad going—

Dave:And I still wouldn’t give it up. I’d be like [snoring sound], and I was totally awake, but I wasn’t going to go “You’re right.”

Ann:You know what that is? That’s sin.

Dave:That was sin.

Ann:It’s selfishness.

Dave:That was sin.

Bruce:Okay, and maybe I’m wrong here, but if it’s the baby crying right now, that’s when I let you because I can’t get up and feed her.

Dave:Exactly. She doesn’t want you.

Bruce:But the other three, I feel like I get out of bed for the other three.

Maria:You do.

Bruce:So what are we talking about?

Maria:This is in the past.

Bruce:Okay, okay.

Ann:Alright, first of all, we’re talking about a lot of families are in this situation, even if you don’t have a newborn. Kids are always going through sickness, teething. They have nightmares. They’re sick. So there’s always times—

Maria:Anxiety.

Ann:Yes—that kids wake up and you’re not getting sleep. Give us the results of not getting sleep. What happens when you’re so tired?

Maria:We had a newborn; our baby is four months. And then we have a child with anxiety who ruminates. She’ll get stuck on something and she can’t stop thinking about it.

Bruce:Like, “I can’t fall asleep. Uh oh, I need to fall asleep. Uh oh, I can’t fall asleep.”

Maria:And then she gets stressed out that she’s not falling asleep.

Bruce:Or it can be anything else. She just ruminates. Is that the word?

Maria:Yeah, ruminates. And then we have another child with night terrors so it’s like the perfect storm—

Bruce:We finally—

Maria:—of sleep hell, honestly.

Bruce:We finally figured it out with the sleep terrors. So our 6-year-old will just wake up crying and it doesn’t help for me to stand by her bunk bed and just say, “It’s going to be all right. Nothing’s wrong. Calm down.“

Ann:All three of our kids had that.

Bruce:That turns out does nothing.

Dave:So what do you do?

Bruce:So for her, we have to actually get her down off of her bunk bed. I take her out to the living room or the den or—

Ann:They have to wake up.

Maria:Yeah. We have to get them to wake up.

Bruce:Usually I would be very against this, but I’ll get my phone out and do cat videos or something. She loves those. I wouldn’t normally do something like that because I think, “Oh, I’m just rewarding this behavior.” But she has no control over it.

Maria:She has no idea.

Bruce:She is night terror. She is just—so “Sit down.” She’s crying, crying. But then we’ll put that and five minutes into that she’s laughing and then I’ll just be like, “Alright, let’s go back to bed.” She’ll be like, “Yeah, let’s go back to bed.”

Maria:And you know they’re not abusing it because, at least for her, she’s pretty eager to get back to bed. She’s not trying to stay up and watch more.

Bruce:She has no control over when they start.

Ann:How old is she?

Bruce:Six.

Maria:Six.

Ann:Yeah.

Dave:Now were you the kind of parents that went by the put my baby down, especially when they’re first learning to sleep, and they start crying, “I’m not going in.” Or did you go in?

Maria:We had to with our first.

Bruce:We tried it all.

Maria:We had to with our first, because she wouldn’t go to sleep on her own. She wouldn’t respond to any of the sleep training things I tried. At some point, we just had to let her cry, and I would have to—

Bruce:That was really hard for you.

Maria:Yeah, I would have to go in the shower. He’s like, “Just go in the shower, turn on the fan, put on some music, whatever and just stay in there”—

Bruce:—where you can’t hear her.

Maria:—”where you can’t hear her.”

Ann:I did the same thing with our first. I went upstairs to sleep because we had some bedrooms upstairs because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let them cry. And Dave, you went in, kind of soothe them. You go through, every so many minutes, you go in and comfort them. And then it worked within three nights, he’s sleeping through night. And then we had number two. You guys, it did not work.

Dave:We’re all different.

Ann:Every night got worse.

Maria:I was going to say the gradual push did not work with her. We had to just, I mean, one night I think she cried for an hour and a half.

Bruce:Yeah.

Ann:Now if you’re a listener—

Dave:Some parents listening right now think “You are evil.”

Ann:Yeah.

Maria:Don’t judge me, please.

Dave:I get it.

Bruce:Well, probably what happens is a technique works for a particular kid, so you think that’s the technique.

Dave:Yeah.

Bruce:Well yeah, it is for that kid.

Ann:Right.

Bruce:I mean obviously—I mean we don’t want to get all relativistic—there are certain principles from the Bible that are true because they’re humans. But as far as sleep techniques, yeah, that can change.

Dave:Our youngest son had their first baby six years ago. Bryce is six now. And he wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t sleeping. I’m like, “Dude, you got to just let him cry. At some point you’re going to just have to.” He goes, “Well, I’ll sit outside and I’m going to let him cry and I’m not going to go in. I’m not going to go in. I’m not going to go in.” And then that night, I think it was the first night, his wife Jenna sends us a picture. This is what she says.

Ann:—of the baby monitor.

Dave:There’s the baby monitor. He is in the crib with him. It’s like he gave in.

Bruce:How long after was that? It was like 30 minutes.

Dave:I mean I don’t know how long, but he—

Ann:He doesn’t remember. He did go in and comfort him.

Dave:I know. It’s just funny. He just said, and you know me, I use that for Christmas. It was right around Christmas. I said, “Jesus got in the crib with us. He didn’t just stand outside.” Anyway. But I mean everybody’s different, but at the end of the day, you’re not sleeping, and it affects your marriage. It affects everything.

Ann:That’s what I want to see. How has it affected, the no sleeping, what happens as a result?

Maria:We get real snarky, real snarky.

Bruce:Yeah, sin nature on steroids. So it it’s like when you’re hangry.

Maria:I’ll give an example. One night Gloria is having a thing, but it wasn’t a night terror. Well, maybe it was. I don’t know. But she’s having a meltdown, and Bruce goes in there to deal with the situation, and I hear it escalate. I’m like, “Why is it escalating?” And so I go over there, and he basically had just told them they have to go back to sleep and he’s just leaving the room.

Bruce:Oh yeah. This was before we figured out the night terror thing, and I was just at my wit’s end. I’m just like, “You need to calm down.”

Ann:That helps.

Bruce:That’s what she said.

Dave:In a real calm voice.

Bruce:That’s exactly what she said as she came around the corner.

Maria:He’s like, “I’m leaving. I’m going back to my bed. You guys need to calm down.” And he’s leaving the room. I’m like, “Oh, that’s going to work.”

Bruce:And I don’t know why, that made me so mad.

Ann:Why did that make you mad?

Bruce:I was just—

Dave:Because you’re tired.

Bruce:I’m like, “I got up. I’m doing the best I can. I’m in here at least trying, and that’s the remark I get. Not like, ‘Hey, thanks for giving it a try.’”

Maria:He says, “I’m desperate.” And that made me mad because I’m like, “You’re desperate. I have another baby that’s going to be up in an hour needing to be fed.” Like “Get him calmed down.”

Bruce:It’s like anytime right now when I say, “Oh, I’m so tired.” Not that tired though. I always forget I can’t say it around her.

Ann:That is true. I remember as a young mom, when people had older kids in high school and like, “Oh, I’m so tired.” And in my head, I thought, “You have no idea what tired is.” And you feel like this phase of your life is so hard. But then, they get in high school and now you can’t sleep because you’re like, “Where are they? What are they doing?”

Maria:That’s what we were talking about it and Stall, my oldest was like, “Mom, maybe you’ll sleep. Maybe when Verity’s like eight you’ll sleep,” or something like that. And I was like, “Except for when Verity’s eight, you’re going to be seventeen and out with some boy somewhere.”

Bruce:No, no, she won’t be.

Dave:Not going to happen. That is exactly true though. I don’t think you ever slept—

Ann:No.

Dave:—until they were back in the house. We had a curfew, but if we were going to bed at 10 or 11 and curfew’s midnight—

Ann:There’re some golden ages.

Dave:I’m sleeping. I’m not— “They’re good.” And she’s like, “They should be home.” I’m like, “It’s still curfew.”

Bruce:What about once they get married, then are you able to?

Ann:Yep.

Bruce:Or then are you worried about, “Oh, are they parenting right? Should I say something?”

Ann:No.

Maria:I feel like maybe not. I feel like when that’s, when we’re at that stage, I’ll be able to sleep. I’m like, “Whatever. They’ll come home when they come home.” You’re going to be the more worried when they’re out.

Dave:Maybe.

Bruce:Maybe.

Ann:The thing that’s different—

Dave:Yeah, protecting your girls.

Ann:—you can sleep in the next day. Your kids can get up on their own. They can do their thing. They can you know so it’s not like you have to get up.

Bruce:They can use the bathroom on their own.

Ann:Exactly, you guys. There’s hope around the corner.

Dave:They can wipe.

Bruce:How about the amount of toothpaste that’s in the sink? Does that decrease?

Dave:Toothpaste?

Bruce:It’s just everywhere. It’s unbelievable.

Ann:Bruce, you and I, we relate to this. That stuff would get me going.

Bruce:I just—

Ann:“You guys, you have to put your head down close to the drain and spit.” And I taught them that then. Their sinks were pretty good, but it’s the toothpaste. It’s everywhere.

Bruce:No, I’ve drawn a boundary, like the hallway that leads to their rooms and their bathroom, I’m just like in my mind, it’s just whatever is going to be how it is. If I can keep the rest of the house clean, which I don’t know how you feel about that, but that’s how I’ve thought about it.

Maria:Yeah.

Dave:Well, I mean there’s the craziness of, we’re talking about sleep, but we know your life because we go over to our son’s house. And our house is like this [silence]. That’s how quiet it is most of the time, unless the TV is on or something, it’s quiet. We go over there. It is like a war zone. There’re just three kids being kids. They’re not doing anything bad or wrong. They’re just screaming and then there’s a dog and it’s just nuts. We get in the car like, “Oh my gosh, my head is”— That’s your life, right? How do you deal with it?

Bruce:That’s during the day.

Dave:Every day. Every day.

Bruce:And then at night, yeah.

Ann:You’re up.

Bruce:It’s like Russian roulette at night. It’s like, who’s going to have the problem tonight? Because the four-month-old we know is going to get up twice.

Maria:At least.

Bruce:Who else? What’s going to be the thing tonight? An itchy bum. Is it going to be, “I had a dream about snakes.” Is it—it’s going to be something.

Maria:He’s talking about it; it’s just making my blood pressure go up.

Ann:But I think it’s all perspective too, because—

Dave:Is it?

Ann:It is. Somehow you have to figure out—I think with couples, young couples, I think you have to have somebody that helps you. Somebody that can get your kids once in a while.

Dave:Yeah, we had a couple nannies and—

Ann:Nope; we had nothing.

Dave:—personal assistance. We had nobody. We didn’t have parents near us.

Maria:I actually, I hinted at my mother-in-law, like would she come down, sent her flights. She got the hint.

Bruce:She got the hint; came for ten days; trying to get her to be a snowbird with my dad.

Maria:She came down after the baby was born. But then I asked her would she come down again because it was really bad. It was getting really bad. I had had three, four weeks in a row of, I don’t know, less than six or less hours of sleep.

Ann:Honestly. Because if you don’t have parents nearby, you have to have some friends even that can watch the kids during the day.

Maria:That is one thing that has been a game changer for us, has been babysitting swaps with friends.

Ann:And to take the time. I mean, this sounds crazy, but if you’re not getting sleep. I’ve said this to our daughter-in-law, “I know you have a million things to do, but because your kids have been sick for the last two weeks, somebody’s been sick and you have a baby, I’m going to take them but I want you to sleep.” Because the sleep, man, that affects every part of your life. It affects you physically, emotionally, and spiritually too, because you’re so tired. “I can’t read my Bible. I can’t even pray. I have nothing left.”

So to find those people and to take the time to actually sleep. I mean—and going to bed early. The worst part of that—

Maria:That’s so hard.

Ann:—is that you feel like “I only get a window of time.” But if you’re not sleeping and they’re sick, it’s like you have to go to bed early because you’re going to be up. What time do your kids get up?

Bruce:Every night—

Ann:Six o’clock. Well—

Bruce:Between six and seven.

Maria:That’s another thing is we have one child, Gloria, again—

Bruce:Not naming names or name rhymes with Boria.

Maria:—that keeps coming in every morning between 5:30 and 6 because they’re scared. But it’s every morning so I’m like, “I know you’re not scared. What’s going on?” And she’s like—it’s always something different. Well, “I’m bored” or “I’m lonely.” Then it was like, “My stomach hurts.” I’m like, “Maybe you’re just hungry,” so I put a bag of Cheerios in her room. But then the next night, I forget the bag of Cheerios so then she comes in the room, “Where are my Cheerios?” And I’m like—

Dave:Would a red light work because—

Maria:We have the light, and I’ve told her a million times, “You don’t come out until the”— Okay, don’t get me—

Dave:It doesn’t work; doesn’t work.

Maria:“You don’t come out until the light turns green.” But it doesn’t matter.

Ann:You guys, this just happened to our son. We were just talking to him about that because he would run in our room. One of them would run in our room, same thing about 5:30 in the morning every day. And so I was so tired. “Just be quiet. Just come in here between us.” We had a queen size bed but “Just be quiet. Go to sleep.” I just was just 15 more minutes, even a half hour more feels like an eternity. And then he told me, he goes, “I would have these nightmares about demonic things.” Like “What?!” He goes, “Yeah, I felt like it was the only safe place I could be.” And now I’m thinking, “Oh poor guy.”

Bruce:Well, one thing—you’re probably going to say same thing.

Maria:I was going to say, well, one thing I feel like is important is to figure out where your boundary is with your kids. And so for us, it’s a boundary that we don’t let our kids in our bed. So our compromise—

Bruce:I mean, unless it’s like a Saturday morning or something, and it’s like—

Ann:We don’t let them sleep in our bed.

Bruce:—not in the middle of the night.

Ann:But do you have little—will you put something beside your bed?

Maria:So what we started doing was—

Dave:A little doggy bed.

Maria:—putting a sleeping bag on the floor. And we’re like, “This is not to be abused. If you absolutely cannot keep from coming in because you were that upset, you can come slip in the sleeping bag, but do not wake us up unless it’s an emergency.”

Bruce:And this worked some.

Maria:Some, but that’s where I felt like it was being abused. I was like, “You’re coming in every single morning. I don’t think that this is necessary.”

Ann:And I think sometimes to try to get to the root of what’s going on, ask those deeper questions. You’re so tired at times you’re like you don’t care what it is. Just go to sleep. But to really at some point when everybody’s feeling good, “Let’s go back and talk about the morning. What’s going on when you wake up?”

Bruce:Well, and that’s something we need to remind ourselves often is they’re kids. They need to be parented. The fact that they need us to parent them is not their fault, so we need to be patient. And not to get too spiritual—

Maria:No.

Bruce:—but to be thankful that we get to be the ones that they come to at night. And so I don’t want to discount and say, “Oh, it’s not that hard.” Just whatever. Yes, it’s hard and need practical help like the sleeping bag on the floor, but man, what a privilege it is. I think about, it’s another opportunity to die to ourselves, and to show the love of Christ in that way. We cracked open a parenting book in preparation for this because I was like, “I haven’t read one of these in so long.” We have The Faithful Parent by, what is it?

Maria:I pulled it out the other morning because I was in a rage at a child for waking me up. And I was like, “I need to read something. I need to calm down.”

Bruce:It’s called The Faithful Parent. I forget who it’s by. It’s Scott and something. But anyway, in there it says to view the interruptions—

Maria:Martha Peace.

Bruce:Martha Peace and a guy—

Maria:Somebody Scott.

Bruce:We’ve had them on FamilyLife Today. To view interruptions from your kids as providential interruptions. And so the example they gave is the mom is on the phone with a friend, but then a toddler just acts out and needs discipline and to be dealt with. And instead of being exasperated and what, that is a providential interruption from God; receive it like that.

Ann:And even in the middle of the night.

Bruce:In the middle the night.

Ann:God can make your kids sleep through the night easily. So the question I have sometimes is, “God, what are you saying to me? What’s going on?” And to even exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. Think about the first few, love, joy, peace, patience.

Dave:That’s so hard when you’re tired.

Bruce:But that’s what, it’s not about me. So yeah, I’m mad that I’m having to get up and I got mad because you said that comment and all this, it’s not about me. And we’re living like that. You as hard as it is, and we want to be respectful and understanding of that. It is also an opportunity—

Ann:You’re learning to die to yourself.

Bruce:—to bring it to Christ and die to yourself.

Ann:I’m telling you; parenting makes you die to yourself every day. The way they act, their tantrums, their sleep, it’s not about you. I love that. It’s about—don’t you feel like in parenting you’re learning more than you’re actually giving your kids. It’s about God shaping you. And so that’s the question: “God, you want to obviously use this to shape me. Am I yielding to it or am I fighting it?” But the sleep deprivation, man, you have got to figure out how to get some sleep.

Bruce:Yeah. Well, okay, so what do you say to that though? So let’s say we finally get the girls down. It’s eight o’clock, everyone is in their beds for now, and we should probably go to sleep, but we also want to watch our show together.

Ann:I know!

Bruce:We got some scrolling to do. I mean, just don’t do that.

Maria:Okay, honest moment—

Bruce:What would you say?

Dave:You’ve got to balance it out.

Ann:I would say—

Dave:—a little of both.

Ann:I would do a few nights of both. If your kids are sick or somebody’s constantly waking up—

Maria:That’s a good idea, alternate.

Ann:Yeah. “Tonight we’re going to go to bed early” and see how you feel in the morning, see if it makes a difference.

Maria:Oh, it does make a difference.

Ann:It does? You know it does.

Maria:Oh, I know it does. I know it does—well, this was an honest moment. It really makes me mad when I turn over to go to sleep and he’s still scrolling because I’m like, “He’s going to stay up till midnight scrolling on his phone and then he’s going to be cranky tomorrow because he didn’t go to bed.”

Bruce:I can’t argue. First of all, those basketball highlights aren’t going to watch themselves, so someone’s got to watch them.

Dave:And it won’t be there tomorrow.

Bruce:Those will be old news by tomorrow. I got to watch them now. Or the debate or whatever that I’m—I don’t know but anyway.

Ann:Yeah, it’s not like you’re scrolling bad things. You’re just wanting to catch up on the world of what’s happening.

Bruce:Yeah, right.

Ann:And I think that’s what we all feel with little kids. I have had no time to myself or to be in the world to know what’s going on.

Bruce:I just want to think a thought I want to think. I get it. I mean, you’re right.

Dave:There’s actually a term for this: revenge bedtime procrastination. In other words—

Bruce:Revenge on who?

Maria:The kids.

Bruce:Oh, it’s bedtime procrastination.

Dave:It’s like you’re just pushing back. “I never get any time.”

Bruce:Oh yeah,

Dave:It’s 11 o’clock or even 10 o’clock; I should go to bed. But guess what? I don’t ever get to just watch this show or watch these highlights. So it’s like this revenge against, and it’s the worst thing to do.

Bruce:Oh, and my stomach will drop if it’s 11:30, I finally put my phone down, turn over, and then “Daddy.” Oh no!

Ann:I know and whose fault is that? The child or the parents.

Bruce:And then I act all sinful and all that. It’s like the righteous thing. The way to live would’ve been two hours earlier.

Ann:I know and think, what did they do before there was TV even and radio. I think that’s big. Even if you took turns of like, “Okay, tonight we’re early,” and both of you and you’re not scrolling even.

Bruce:That would take some self-discipline, self—

Ann:Even if you do two nights—

Bruce:That’s a fruit of the Spirit, self-control.

Ann:Yes. Even if it’s two nights a week where you don’t do that, at least it’d give you a “Are we better when that happens?”

Dave:Are you committing to that right now?

Maria:I don’t know, are we?

Bruce:We’re committing to considering it.

Maria:I’m not ready. I’m not ready.

Dave:That means you’re not doing it.

Bruce:Something—okay, maybe—

Maria:Yes.

Bruce:Maybe. I know you commit a lot on air.

Ann:He does.

Maria:How about one night a week?

Dave:I follow through on everything.

Maria:How about we commit to one night a week, going to bed early.

Ann:One night.

Bruce:One thing we’ve been doing lately in the past three, four weeks that has really helped is as soon as I get home, well, and it’s probably because the weather’s nice, we go out on the patio and the two of us just sit down and have time together.

Maria:And have something cold to drink—

Dave:Where are the kids?

Maria:—and sit down and talk.

Bruce:Well, they’re usually running around and I’m usually kind of talking. I could definitely talk to them kinder, but it’s like, this is me and mommy time. You need to go—

Maria:—play—

Ann:I feel like our kids are doing that too.

Maria:—for the most part.

Ann:One of them brings his wife a cup of really good coffee. He has a really good coffee maker. He brings that to her every morning, and they just talk for a second. Another son, their thing is, “Hey, we’re going to take this time.” Kids are going to do their thing. Their thing is working out together. And he comes up with a—

Bruce:We should think about that.

Maria:Yeah.

Ann:No, but yours is sitting together.

Bruce:We’ve tried a couple times.

Ann:But that’s what energizes them; to know as a couple, “What’s going to fuel us and energize us.” That’s good you guys figured that out.

Bruce:So what we should do is do that. And then there are nights where I’m on the couch, you’re in the bedroom, and this is probably my fault, and I’m scrolling in the living room. You’re scrolling in the bedroom. We’re not even together. You know what I mean? Those are the nights where we should just go to bed at eight, or nine. I don’t know if I—

Ann:Okay, we’re going to keep you accountable for one night.

Maria:One night, one night.

Bruce:One night a week—

Ann:One night.

Bruce:—when the girls go to bed, we go to bed.

Maria:Go to bed early.

Bruce:I mean, that’s what my parents did growing up.

Dave:How does all this affect your marriage?

Maria:Yeah, I mean, my example, it makes me very short. It makes us both very short with each other.

Bruce:There’s a little bit of that, but there’s also a little bit of suffering together.

Maria:Yes. I will say—

Bruce:—unites us, united front.

Maria:—it has brought us together as a team in the sense that, “Okay, if we’re going to survive, we got to be on the same side. We got to figure this out.”

Bruce:You’d think it’d make us pray more. We were talking earlier about—

Maria:You’d think. I mean, we’re up all night.

Ann:Have you been praying for your kids to sleep?

Maria:Have we?

Bruce:I mean, I think individually.

Dave:That must be no.

Maria:As a family at dinnertime, when we’re praying, we’ll pray that everyone will sleep well, not together.

Bruce:We have a book somewhere and I just was asking where it is. Melissa Kruger wrote a book called 5 Things to Pray for Your Kids. We got to find that, and we got to pray for them because it’s easy to come on here and complain about them. And there is a place for, I don’t know what you call it, I guess it’s complaining but just being honest.

Ann:Confession.

Bruce:Yeah, confessing. But boy, it’s like, yeah, how about you save some of that breath for prayer instead of—

Ann:You guys, I’ve thought about that and been convicted myself. And man, you get into a good series that you’re watching on TV. And sometimes I’ll think, “What if I would’ve taken that time to read?” I do read the Bible every day, but to really dig in or to spend time praying, how different would we be?

Dave:How bad is this? Because you know about Wordle, there’s times I do wordle. It doesn’t go fast. It should be a one-minute, two-minute deal.

Bruce:Yeah, sometimes you get stuck.

Dave:Sometimes it’s four, five, six minutes and I’m just, “I got to get it.” I’m like “I could have been praying.”

Ann:I’m in bed with my head on the pillow and he’s like, “What is this I needed to do?”

Dave:I yelled—I’m doing these mini crosswords now. I’m like, “What’s a vegetable that”— I’m like, “I just wasted”— And this one, it times you, these mini ones.

Bruce:Oh, I hate that. Yeah, oh, the mini.

Dave:I know exactly how long I’ve gone. I’m like, “I went eight minutes on a stupid crossword.”

Bruce:It takes eight minutes, Dave. No, I’m just kidding.

Maria:That’s something that happens is a lot of times we’ll have separate time unwinding and then you’ll be ready to hang out when I’m ready to go to sleep or vice versa.

Dave:Well, what about do you guys date? Do you get a babysitter and go out?

Maria:Like I said earlier, date night swaps has been such a game changer for us because babysitters—

Dave:—saves 50 bucks or whatever.

Maria:—babysitters are so expensive.

Dave:You’re doing it like every—

Maria:Twice a month.

Dave:Twice a month.

Bruce:Twice a month.

Dave:Way to go.

Bruce:I thought we were contractually once a month with our swappers.

Maria:Once or twice a month. Once a month is the bare minimum but sometimes, we’ll get in twice a month.

Bruce:And she’s better at keeping us on that. But it has been so fun ever since we got the swap because I don’t know, I’m cheap.

Ann:The money is hard.

Bruce:The money thing for the babysitter, that was always—

Maria:—a point of contention.

Bruce:The sticking point for me is like—

Ann:It wrecked your night, probably.

Bruce:Yeah, we will—or it just wouldn’t happen because I’m like “It’s going to be so much.” So now that we have the swap, which is all her, because I mean she goes and babysits for them and then the mom comes and babysits for us. So I don’t even have to do anything for it.

Ann:And one of the things Dave did do—

Dave:What did I do?

Ann:—when the kids were younger is once a month, he’d take them out. What you said, to do that—

Maria:He’ll do it more than—he’ll do it twice.

Ann:Well, he’d be gone like four hours.

Dave:Oh, he had to do one more than I did.

Maria:Sometimes weekly.

Ann:But having that time in your home, you said it earlier, being at home without everybody.

Dave:But mine was like for two days in a row. I kept him overnight.

Bruce:Oh yeah, yeah, whatever.

Ann:It was like four hours but—

Dave:No, it was half a day.

Ann:Felt like four days. It felt so good, and you’re refreshed. And I think parents need to be able to do that, take the time.

And the other thing I say to young parents is, be in the Word. It reminds you who God is and who you are in Him. And even if you’re just listening to the Word, I would say just do that; put it on. You can listen to anything. You can go on You Version and just listen to the scripture that day. And it’ll be amazing how just one thing might stick out or might change you or might give you wisdom of what you’re going through. I think that’s really big too.

Bruce:Well Jim, our executive producer was talking about the “One Anothers” in scripture and how sleep deprivation makes those even harder.

Dave:It makes everything harder.

Ann:Yeah. Let’s read some of those.

Bruce:Well, one of them that stands out to me, and I think it’s something that we should memorize as a couple, is it’s in Ephesians. I don’t know it word for word, but it’s the be tender hearted towards one another, forgiving one another in Christ as you’ve been forgiven. The tender-hearted part, man, how far would it go if I was tender hearted with you?

Maria:Well, and vice versa.

Bruce:Forget even me doing more, which obviously, yeah, get that on the table too. But just being tenderhearted alone would be a game changer.

Ann:We should put these in the show notes. Jim, these are really good. Be at peace with each other. Wash one another’s feet.

Dave:How about, offer hospitality without grumbling.

Bruce:I was with you until that grumbling part.

Dave:I am the biggest grumbler ever.

Ann:Live in harmony.

Dave:I’m walking down the hall. “I can never go to sleep. I can’t believe.” “Hey guys, let’s go”—

Bruce:Well, okay, here’s a question.

Dave:Don’t you grumble, grumble, grumble, especially when you’re tired?

Maria:Yes.

Bruce:Is it possible to grumble about anything without your ultimate grumble being against God? If you were to go deeper into what you’re actually saying.

Dave:Yeah, you’re upset with life circumstances.

Bruce:You might not be saying, “I’m mad at God” or “I’m grumbling against God,” “God’s unfair,” but if you’re, yeah, God is sovereign, God is providentially orchestrating your life—that stuff that’s coming into your life, and so if you’re grumbling—I was talking to Maria, “Every complaint I have ultimately, if you trace it deep enough, is against God.”

Dave:I agree.

Ann:I mean, when you look at the Psalms—

Bruce:I think.

Ann:—and you’re looking at lament. A third of the Psalms are lament, which is kind of a, well, it’s not a grumble though.

Bruce:Yeah, complaint and grumbling seems different.

Ann:How would you define both?

Bruce:That’s a good question. Complaint is like, “This is my”—

Maria:This is what’s happening.

Bruce:This is what’s happening.

Maria:Airing your grievances.

Bruce:Airing my grievance.

Ann:Yeah, that’s good.

Bruce:And I’m just being honest. Whereas grumbling is “God, you’re wrong for doing this.”

Ann:And my spouse is wrong for doing this or my kids or the boss. That’s different. You’re right.

Bruce:And your spouse, we teach this at the Weekend to Remember, your spouse is a good, well is not your enemy and is a good gift from God. So I pray sometimes, “Lord, help me to receive her as the good gift that she is.”

Ann:So instead of—

Bruce:Because you know when I complain about her or grumble about her, I’m grumbling about the one who gave her to me and “The woman you gave me.”

Dave:You want to talk to apple breath over here, not me.

Ann:So put that into practical terms in terms of, your kids just woke up. You’re walking down the hall. Instead of grumbling, what could you do?

Maria:And we’ve done this before, instead of saying, “Yeah, that’s going to work.”

Bruce:Which if—I deal it out, but I can’t take it, as if I wouldn’t say that to you.

Maria:And in my defense, I was actually just trying to make it funny so that we—

Bruce:It wasn’t funny.

Dave:Sure you were.

Maria:It’s true.

Bruce:Not funny.

Maria:But it wasn’t funny in the moment. It was not a good idea.

Bruce:It was timing.

Maria:Instead of saying that, I could say, “Hey, thanks for getting up with them. I’ll take it from here.”

Bruce:Or praying. I’m not praying when I’m mad at the kids. But if walking down the hall after hearing, “Hey, Celeste peed on the carpet,” and I’m walking down the hall to deal with that, it is possible, and it might be completely out of just sheer obedience, but to say, “God, help me with this. Thank you that I get to be their dad. And help me to show them Your love.”

Ann:And Your grace.

Bruce:Yeah. I mean, because, okay, I’m going to totally over spiritualize this, but I mean, if you want to go to the worst example of offense ever done in the history of mankind, it is the son of God being crucified. I mean, that is as offensive and as wrong as you can get. And what does Christ say in that moment? “Father, forgive them.” So I mean, it’s almost blasphemous even to put that on the same scale. You know what I mean? And to say I can’t deal with this with grace.

Ann:Yeah, that’s good. And it is crazy too, just to think that when you have that heart of gratitude, “We get to have these four kids, what a gift from God. We get to share this home with them and be the ones that are comforting them and discipling them and pouring into them. What a gift.” If you look at it in a different way, but if we are constantly in the negative, “Tonight’s going to be awful. Nobody’s going to sleep.” And that’s probably, it’s like you’re anxious going into bedtime because you’re going to be awake. And so to change your mindset, to have the mind of Christ. And that’s impossible without the power of the Holy Spirit.

Bruce:Right. Well, and that’s what I was thinking with these “one anothers.” You could look at that list and go, “Okay, I got to do better. I got to try so much harder.”

Ann:Yeah.

Bruce:But no, it’s abide in me.

Ann:Abide, yes.

Bruce:You don’t want to try harder. You want to abide in Christ. So where can you find your joy in Him, your delight in Him. Instead of putting more burden on you, put His burden on you, which is light and easy.

Dave:Which again is really difficult in the stage of the life you guys are in. You’ve got to choose when you have a moment or five or ten minutes to say, “I’m going to abide. I’m going to connect with Jesus right now rather than drink iced tea or whatever, scroll through my phone.” I’m like, “I need to connect to the Father and I only have eight minutes because we all know she’s going to start yelling here in a minute.”

Ann:You guys, and I’m also just think, praying about sleeping a consistent prayer. And if God’s not answering that prayer, “Lord, we pray our girls would sleep well tonight. Help them to sleep through the night.” If they’re not, and there’s all kinds of reasons why they’re not, “Lord, evidently, you are having us up for a reason. You’re teaching us. You’re shaping us. You’re whatever. You want to speak to us tonight.”

I’ve even read so much about nursing moms; how nursing moms aren’t looking in the face of their babies anymore because they’re scrolling on their phones and it’s changing these infants. They’re not getting the personal eye to eye contact and it’s not developing their brains in the same rate that was happening before. I’m like, “Oh my goodness, I’m so glad I didn’t have a phone” because it’s so easy just to say—

Maria:Okay, 90 percent of the time when I’m nursing, I’m watching a show or scrolling.

Ann:And they’re talking about all the studies they’re doing on brains of the infants that aren’t making eye to eye contact. It’s so convicting, isn’t it?

Bruce:What I wonder, would it help you if when you’re nursing, I don’t know, send me a text and I won’t be on my phone either. We’ll do this together. I don’t know.

Dave:Geez, I’m hearing a lot of promises being made here.

Bruce:I was asking the question. I wasn’t making any commitments.

Dave:I got to check up on that one.

Ann:But I do remember, I would pray most of the time when I’m up at night.

Maria:Well, I was going to say at night, at least at night, I don’t

Ann:You don’t do that.

Maria:—do my phone at night because it stimulates me too much. And then I can’t get back to sleep. I’m not a good sleeper. That’s another thing is I have a hard time sleeping. Anyways—

Bruce:That’s the thing. No kids, no nothing, she’s still not a great sleeper.

Dave:Really?

Maria:So one night Bruce said, “I’ll take the baby duty. You give me a bottle, and I’ll do the night, and you get the night off.”

Bruce:One night.

Ann:How was that?

Maria:And it was great because I got four hours together, which I hadn’t had in so long. But then I woke up at four in the morning and I couldn’t go back to sleep.

Bruce:And then I was mad when she came out in the morning because here I am. And I was like, “How’d you sleep?” “Terrible.” And I was like—I was mad at her. I’m like, “Come on.”

Maria:We didn’t plan enough. So I didn’t know when he gave her the bottle. So I didn’t know, can I nurse her now or did she just have the bottle?

Bruce:We only had the bottle. We needed two feedings. We only had one bottle. So you did have to still pump one.

Maria:And I’m like, “So do I pump right now or do I”—

Ann:These are the things going on in a woman’s brain.

Maria:And so I couldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t know if she was going to be up in ten minutes to nurse.

Bruce:But what does that, I mean, not to make it about me, but if I was actually doing it to serve you, when I heard that you didn’t sleep well, I would’ve been like, “Oh, I’m so bummed for you.” But I was mad at her. I’m like, “I did all this, and you wasted it.” How terrible is that.

Ann:Instead of even like “You got a solid four! Yes!”

Bruce:Yeah, yeah.

Ann:And it’s such a phase that goes away.

Maria:Yeah.

Bruce:But I remember one time we were recording something, and I think I was at home, and it was craziness, and I said to you guys, I’m like, “Yeah, but we’ll miss it someday, right?” And Dave, you were like, “Nope.”

Ann:The no sleeping thing, you do not miss the no sleep.

Dave:Never.

Ann:You do not miss this.

Hey, thanks for watching and if you like this episode—

Dave:You better it!

Ann:—just hit that like button.

Dave:And we’d like you to subscribe. So all you got to do is go down and hit the subscribe. I can’t say the word subscribe. Hit the subscribe button. I don’t think I can say this word.

Ann:Like and subscribe.

Dave:Look at that, you say it so easy. Subscribe, there it goes.

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