In the first part is today.
We're going to be talking about a saying that honestly should go right along
with many other Stayings that if we were to say it, um,
they sound really good when you hear it. But if you dive in deeper,
it doesn't actually hold any merit or really make much logical sense.
And that's saying that we're going to talk about today is if you love someone,
let them go. Now,
the thing about the saying is it does sound really nice. You're right. You know,
if, if I just let them go and then they come back,
that's the rest of the saying, if they come back,
then that's how I know that it's to be for sure.
And there might be times in certain relationships,
a relationship that just starting off with dating or something like that,
where you could heed this advice and it might make sense.
And it might work out for you in the long run. But unfortunately,
a lot of times when this saying is said by,
it might be coming from a friend or family member,
who's saying it to someone who they see that's in a longterm committed
relationship, such as marriage. And they see that person getting hurt.
They see that person having to fight for their relationship and it's not working
out the way that they want it to. And so this well-meaning person says to them,
well, if you love your husband, just let them go.
Let them go be with that other woman,
let them go chase that lifestyle that they want to chase after.
And if they come back, then, then you know, it's meant to be. But if not,
then you know that you can move.
Yeah. And there are various versions of that. Let them go. If they come back,
they're yours forever.
If they don't come back to where they were never yours to begin with.
And that is, well, actually there's a two word,
two syllable word that comes to my mind.
It starts with a B and ends with a T S that word is.
Another way to put it. But as I was thinking about this this morning, Joe,
here's exactly what I thought. I thought, you know what?
I love my almost three year old son and you know what? He loves to do,
run towards cars in the road.
If I look and I understand it's a different context,
but in this same process of thinking, well, if I love him,
then I should just let him go chase what he loves, chase what he loves to do.
But me being the person who seen the hurt that he could get himself into,
that he could. Cause I love him enough to rescue him from that.
And so it applies also with marriages. If I see my husband,
he's maybe he's in love with someone else or he's chasing after a lifestyle that
I know is going to end up being to his detriment.
Why would I just completely let him go?
Why would I not do what I can to try and fight for him and
rescue our relationship? Now here's what I do think holds merit to it.
And perhaps this is the way that the phrase should be said, if you love someone,
let go of controlling them.
Yeah. Control never works at all. Never works.
We control actually pushes people away.
We shouldn't even have to think I saw on Facebook a year or two ago,
somebody posted, you know, I have a,
the maximum Facebook friends is not all the time. No, no, no.
I'm just saying I'm happiest chefs about thousands.
Because most of the people who are my Facebook friends, I don't really know.
They've heard me speak or whatever.
And some guy posted and I didn't really know anybody posted,
my wife wants to leave. She wants to go find herself, spread her wings.
And because I love her so much, I'm letting her go.
And then people underneath that were posting things like, Oh, you're so loving.
You're so kind. You're so gracious.
And I really wanted to post that a two syllable word being a T because I'm
thinking this either a, you don't really want her there,
and this is your excuse to let her go where other people are actually on your
side or B you have no backbone and strength at all.
Because if you truly, truly, truly love someone, you just let them walk away.
No, you're right. Kimberly. We do not try to control her nominate, right?
Because that doesn't work. It works against you. But just to say it,
that's what makes you happy go do that right. Is idiotic.
But people struggle with it. And I do get that. There's this struggle of, well,
if they're wanting to walk out anyway,
if they're wanting out of the relationship,
then how do I balance this tension between not trying to control them and get
them to stay versus just letting them walk out the door. And it is hard.
Sure. It is. And that's why we, among other things,
we do a lot of things to help people, a lot of resources.
And one of the resources is of course we do online and we call it saved my
marriage where we're teaching people. Okay.
Rather than just accepting the fact that he or she walked away, don't control.
Don't, don't try to cleaning. Don't try to make them do things,
but there's certain things that you can do if you want to stand for your
marriage, that,
that have a great influence and have a great likelihood of causing this person
to rethink these things, turn around and come back.
So we're not saying that you don't let them go in the sense that you pull a
pistol and say, if you try to leave me, right. I don't know. That's bad.
That's really bad. But what we're saying is don't just give up that what you do,
there's certain principles or certain things you can do that create the
possibility. As a matter of fact, in many cases, not just the possibility,
but the probability that the person will come back to you and that you can save
the relationship. And if a couple goes through a major crisis,
what are the major crisis might be? And if they get to the other end,
the other side of it, where they can make the marriage good again,
inevitably the marriage is stronger and better than it was before. So if you,
if people are thinking, well, hell, if they want to go,
then even if we did put it back together, it will never be again,
what it was we say, good. You don't want it to be again, what it was.
He wanted to be better, stronger,
more fulfilling than you ever thought it could have been.
Right? You know, this past weekend,
we had an amazing workshop that was here right here in the Nashville Tennessee
area. We had 23 couples, just, I have not done, um,
part of our workshop in a while with maternity leave and things like that.
But stepping back in and getting involved, I just,
I was reminded at how much I love these people that we get to meet,
that we get serve in our workshops.
And by the end of the first day,
I already was seeing couples who were saying,
we don't have to go back home and have the same marriage that we came here for.
They were already seeing a vision of that.
We, uh, we are, we do 26 of these workshops a year. So you guys kinda know,
and, and they're averaging probably 25 to 27 couples, four workshops,
somewhere in there, at least there. Now, uh, we have 26,
we've already scheduled for next calendar year 20, 20.
We wish we could tell people that if they came to the workshop,
we have 100% success in helping people save their marriages.
But we don't yet we consistently, and we've been doing this for 20 years,
have been able to help couples to the point that three out of four couples
actually do turn it around and save their marriages.
We wish you were all four out of four couples that are a hundred percent.
And maybe someday we can find some way to help people do that. But,
but people still make their own decisions. Yeah. But even yesterday,
I did this particular workshop. I led this particular workshop.
A Kimberly Dean came in and did a section of it.
But this couple walked up to me a very nice couple and it looked to be
45 ish. I can't really tell how old people are because I'm a hundred,
but this couple,
this couple came up to the end and she looked at me and he was with her standing
there. And she said, she said, I walked into this workshop on Friday saying,
there's no hope I came just because he asked me to and offered a deal,
all those kinds of things. And now I see how we can do it.
We can actually say this marriage and so great.
I'm glad that he stood for his marriage rather than saying to her, well,
you just go. And if you come back, you'll be mine forever.
And if you don't come back, you never wear mine to begin with.
He didn't try to control her dominate, but he did do the things he needed to do.
And now that marriage is going to make it,
they will have some work to do that. Marriage is going to make it.
I love it. You know, with this, as we're about to go into our first callers,
my takeaways are, if you love someone,
you might need to let go of some expectations that you have some expectations of
what you thought your marriage should be or think,
or there's some expectations that probably need to be reevaluated.
If you love someone, you might need to let go of control. Absolutely.
If you love someone,
there's definitely some things that you might need to let go of,
but please don't let go of that.
Yeah. And I guess we've said it enough, I'm becoming too redundant,
not to control her dominate, but to do the things you need to do that has the,
that will have the influence of being able to lead this person back into the
marriage and saving him. That's what love is.