How One Couple Overcame Infidelity and Broke Generational Cycles (Part 2 of 2)

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
Episode: How One Couple Overcame Infidelity and Broke Generational Cycles (Part 2 of 2)
Date: January 29, 2026
Guests: Tim and Kathy Bush

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Episode Overview

This episode continues the moving and transparent story of Tim and Kathy Bush, a couple who faced repeated infidelity, deep marital disconnect, and the weight of destructive family legacies. The Bushes, now married over 40 years, share how God restored their marriage through honesty, repentance, counseling, and new spiritual habits, ultimately creating a legacy of faith for their children and grandchildren. The episode highlights the importance of vulnerability, mentorship, and spiritual practices in transforming brokenness into thriving love.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Turning Point: Discovery and Decision to Fight for Marriage

• Kathy describes being caught by Tim making a secret phone call to an old boyfriend, representing her “rock bottom” moment (03:12).
• Despite years of marital trouble and infidelity on both sides, Kathy still wanted to fight for the marriage, leading her to beg Tim for counseling (03:52).
• Both entered a two-year process of counseling, applying themselves more sincerely than in previous attempts.

Kathy: “For some reason, I mean, I'm making—this is how twisted my head was—I'm making this phone call to this guy, yet I'm still thinking I want to be married.” (03:34)

2. The Role of Secrets and Full Disclosure

• Tim admits he was only “90% truthful” with Kathy and his counselor for much of the counseling period (09:20), fearing the consequences of full honesty.
• True breakthrough came only after Tim fully confessed all of his actions, which radically shifted the dynamic of their relationship.

Kathy: “You can’t heal a marriage if you have secrets. And that’s why we could never heal.” (09:31, repeated from earlier)

3. Impact of Past Trauma and Breaking Generational Cycles

• Tim shares about his abusive childhood and multiple stepfathers (12:00), unpacking how those experiences shaped his control issues and impacted the marriage.
• Counseling revealed his need to “control everything” stemmed from childhood trauma and survival mechanisms.

Tim: “I didn’t become a man until I was 47 years old…that anxiety got debilitating where I could not even get up anymore.” (10:44)

• He recounts forgiving his abusive stepfather while not yet a Christian, an act prompted by his brother’s illness and imminent passing (12:00).

4. Mentorship and Christian Community

• The couple underscores the importance of mentors and spiritual guidance, sharing stories about being directed to new churches and learning the significance of praying together (14:57, 16:08).
• Early spiritual practices were literal and sometimes awkward, e.g., Tim praying every day “at” Kathy before learning to pray with her (16:30).

Kathy: “Do you think when you get done praying, you cannot say ‘in Jesus name’ in case I have something to say?” (16:32)

• Their mentorship now includes modeling prayer and Bible reading for other couples, finding many longtime Christians had never prayed together.

5. Restoration, Modeling, and Family Legacy

• The Bushes’ transformation became highly visible, both at home and work. They changed their business (a BMW dealership) to reflect their faith, from closing on Sundays to displaying scriptures (19:09).
• Their children, once skeptical, witnessed ongoing change and gradually accepted their parents’ faith.

Tim: “He said, ‘Dad, I don’t even know who you are anymore…’ I said, ‘Did you like me better before or do you like me better now?’ He said, ‘You know, now that you say that, I like you better now.’” (21:03)

• Their son Blake, initially distressed by workplace changes, ultimately came to faith and shared his testimony publicly (21:37).
• The transformation extended to their grandchildren, who now reference seeing their grandparents pray and read the Bible together—a sign of generational cycles being broken (22:40).

6. Encouragement to Struggling Couples

• The episode closes with both Tim and Kathy offering hope and practical advice to struggling couples:

Kathy: “I would say the biggest thing is hang in there, be committed, and with the power of Christ you can have a thriving marriage...our commitment to being in God’s word every day...if you don’t know the blueprint for your life and what God wants for your life, you’re not going to know.” (24:00)

Tim: “Guys, your wife’s a gift from God. She’s a daughter of the King…every wife wants to feel like she’s a gift...Other than my salvation, Kath is my greatest gift on this earth.” (25:20)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tim: “I tell guys nowadays…if you want to fix something in your marriage, what's looking back at you?” (07:32)
• Kathy: “Now I had to step up and I had to take care of him. And my heart for him changed. For the first time in our marriage, I had a different kind of freedom.” (09:23)
• Jim Daly: “How many crippled, emotionally crippled adults are there out there, even in the church, that have not been able to make that jump to say, God, I know you own it all?” (13:37)
• Tim: “When I say every day I thank God for the gift of my wife and she hears that, I think there’s something powerful in that.” (25:20)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• The Rock Bottom Phone Call & Lead-In to Counseling: 03:12–05:52
• Tim’s Confession and the Power of Truth: 07:32–09:31
• Dealing with Anxiety, Control & Trauma: 10:40–12:54
• The Role of Mentors and Accountability: 14:57–17:16
• Restoration, Visible Change & Children Responding: 17:50–21:37
• Advice for Struggling Couples and the Power of Daily Practices: 24:00–26:21

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Concluding Thoughts

This episode provides a raw, faith-filled blueprint for moving from secrecy and generational brokenness to honest healing and spiritual legacy. The Bushes’ openness about their journey—including infidelity, control, trauma, and reconciliation—demonstrates that true transformation is possible through Christ, community, and spiritual discipline. Listeners are encouraged that even if their family history and marriage feel hopeless, they can begin afresh, break old cycles, and create a new legacy for their children and grandchildren.

Transcript

[Jim Daly]

Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup. But when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone. I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally. So I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kathy Bush]

What I felt like was for us, everything was finally out there. Now we could start healing. And that's the thing with secrets. You can't heal a marriage if you have secrets. And that's why we could never heal.

[John Fuller]

That's Kathy Bush reflecting on a time when they really had to look at how things were going in their marriage. Kathy and her husband Tim are back today with us on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. They're going to share more about how God helped restore their marriage. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.

[Jim Daly]

Tim and Kathy, they're so honest about what they went through, their Christian conversion and what that meant to them. It was refreshing to just hear honest and open dialogue about brokenness in life. I think so often we try to sugarcoat that or we don't deal with what is true. And therefore you don't get to whole healing with the Lord. You hide portions of it. Right. People describe that as the closet that we don't let him go into.

[Tim Bush]

Right.

[Jim Daly]

We put all the bad stuff in that closet. But how refreshing this couple last time talking about the things they experienced, the things from childhood that kind of tilted them in that direction. We're going to continue that discussion today. Really? Why? Why should this couple share their darkest moments with you and write this book, Sex on the First, A story of a broken beginning to a radically transformed marriage. It's simple to help you if you're in that spot, if there's darkness that you're going through. Hey, take it from a broken couple. How to get back to health.

[John Fuller]

Yeah, this is a great example of how God can take pain and dysfunction and he can turn it into something really beautiful. And Tim and Kathy Bush have been married over 40 years. They have three grown children, eight grandchildren. They've really recreated a legacy that they've given their family. They're speakers and founders of War Room Ministries. And as you said, Jim, they've written a book called Sex on the First Date. Learn more about our guests and this resource and other marriage helps that we have for you. We've got Links for you in the show notes.

[Jim Daly]

Tim and Kathy, welcome back. It's good to see you. Boy, we really did get into it last time. And Kathy, I want to kind of pick up where we touched on last time. Right at the end we talked about Tim's infidelity and the space he was living in without the Lord and drinking heavily and the marriage falling apart. But I think Tim overheard a phone call that you had that really caused a turning point. Another turning. You got a few turning points, but another turning point. What was going on with that call and what did he overhear?

[Kathy Bush]

Yeah, this was pretty much my rock bottom when I got caught on this call. And I had just recently gotten back from aesthetic school and I'd gone away to school for seven months and I wasn't even sure I was going to come back to the marriage. Our kids were all out of the house at this point. Our last one had graduated and there was just something in me that once again I felt like I wanted to fight for this marriage. But I got back and I remember thinking, you know, maybe our marriage is just going to be. We're going to stay married. We'd been married for 20, 25 years at this time and we're going to stay married and I'm going to have an occasional affair. That's really, that's where my heart was. And I had a phone card that I had had in school with some, which I had called some old boyfriends on because I didn't want Tim to track my calls. And so I was just home and I was bored and I just thought of this guy and just wanted someone to talk to. Our marriage was just kind of ho hum, I thought. And so I just picked up the phone and called this guy. And Tim had he. I thought he had left the house. He hadn't left the house. And he walked into my office and pretty much caught me and he saw the phone card and I thought, he's gonna find out every phone call on there and this is gonna be the end. And really every point of our marriage where I had said I wanted a divorce, I find for some reason, I mean, I'm making, it's. This is how twisted my head was. I'm making this phone call to this guy, yet I'm still thinking I wanna be married. So I was just confused. I'm just like, I don't even really know what I want. But yet now I'm in a corner. Tim's caught me on the phone and Tim finally says, I can't do this Anymore. I can't. I really felt like this was the first time he said, I can't be married to you. And so at this point, I begged him because, like I said, there's something in me that wants to be married to him. And I beg him. I'm like, okay, I know that there's something wrong with our marriage. It's broken. We can't. I knew of some of the infidelity. Tim hadn't shared all of it yet, but I knew that we either needed to figure out how to be married and be faithful or just get a divorce. And I said, let's get some counseling. And we had been in and out of counselors, but not really dedicated to that. And so at this point, Tim agreed to it and we found a husband and wife team. And we started, at this point, a two year counseling process where I went to the wife and Tim went to the husband. Yeah.

[Jim Daly]

Before we get into the learnings of that, Tim, that day that you caught Kathy, I mean, you're coming out of that, too. It wasn't like it's all her fault. It was your fault, too. And it's not even the issue of fault. It's brokenness. As you said, Kathy, you're operating out of your past insecurities, your current insecurities, all those things that a counselor is going to unpack with you as to what motivates you to do the things that you did. But in that moment, you were trying to think through, how do I fix Kathy? Right.

[Tim Bush]

Well, it was always fixed Kathy. When we went to the counseling counselors before, it was always going to fix her because I just thought most guys did at least some of the things that I did. It was a normal thing. And, you know, I really thought that this was a time where something had to happen different. And when I caught Cath on the phone, I thought to myself, you know what? I thought I was making deals with God and it was going to be better. But I was realizing, you know, maybe God just doesn't want us to be married and I'm not going to tell her everything because if I told her everything, then that would make me bad. So I thought, you know, I think the only way out of this is probably a divorce now, and I could just start my life with somebody else. I could figure that out. And so at that point, I was. That's the first time really, I can say I was really done, because there was no way I was going to tell Kath everything.

[Jim Daly]

How did you move from all of that to keeping in, you know, staying in the process of improving your marriage. So you go from, I got to fix her. What was that transition to say? Well, maybe, maybe it's not about fixing her, it's about fixing me.

[Tim Bush]

Well, and that's what I tell guys nowadays. You always got to look in the mirror if you want to fix something in your marriage, what's looking back at you. But for me, I remember after going to counseling with Jake, and he was just transitioning that with me, kind of talking to me about it. And then when he finally said, you know, the issue in your marriage is you're not telling Kath everything. And that was after two years of counseling, because I hadn't told him either. And so when I finally told him, it was like this relief came off me that when he told me I needed to tell her and when I actually did tell her, and it took two hours and she kept saying, is that all? Is that all? Is that all? And then finally when I said, yeah, as best of my recollection, that's all.

[Jim Daly]

Let me ask you, Kathy, with that kind of disclosure, and you know, every couple is going to be in a different place, and you should talk to a counselor about how to go about dealing with maybe unsaid things. We don't want to put a blanket here, but in that context, for a lot of wives particularly, that could be the dagger of death to that marriage. How did you absorb that and then say, okay, let's move forward. How did that happen?

[Kathy Bush]

Well, I think with that two years of counseling, and what's interesting is I thought in the counseling that Tim was being honest. I mean, I didn't think for a minute that he wasn't sharing. I mean, we're paying for counseling and we're wanting help in our marriage. So I really thought that he was telling me everything in counseling. And actually after the two years, I even told Tim, I said, know, I don't need to do this anymore. Like, I felt like we were. We had worked through all we needed to work through. I felt like we were good enough. I felt like it was enough like you, you know, when you're done counseling.

[Tim Bush]

And I was 90% truthful.

[Jim Daly]

Yeah, right.

[Kathy Bush]

And then at that turning point is when he started having anxiety. So he kept seeing the counselor. But what was interesting, I really think as Tim, when Tim started getting unhealthy with anxiety, depression, and that man that was so controlling in our marriage shifted, and he wasn't. He couldn't control anything. And so our marriage started to look different to where I was always controlled by Tim. Well, now I had to step up and I had to take care of him. And my heart for him changed. And I felt like for the first time in our marriage, I had a different kind of freedom, but I wanted to be there. So when he. At the point when he told me everything, there was not one part of me that wanted to leave him. I was hurting for him and the burden he had been carrying. And actually what happened with me was our marriage kind of started to make sense. Everything that I had been doing. And I would tell him, I realized he had been doing the same thing. And what I felt like was for us, everything was finally out there. Now we could start healing. And that's the thing with secrets. You can't heal a marriage if you have secrets. And that's why we could never heal.

[Tim Bush]

And Kath also talked about the anxiety starting. And actually that's when it became debilitating. I had anxiety off and on from my 20s, and it was for my lifestyle. I look back at it, but I could work out or I could have a few drinks or do something to overcome it. But eventually that didn't work anymore. I say this all the time. I didn't become a man until I was 47 years old. I was a boy because of the way I handled things. But that anxiety got debilitating where I could not even get up anymore.

[Jim Daly]

Well, and it kind of goes to the pride of a man.

[Tim Bush]

Right?

[Jim Daly]

And that's what the Lord was after. I think he uses these circumstances or our sinfulness to point us in a better way. That's the irony. I think it's what Paul says about how sin works in us and how God uses that to draw us to him. You know, Tim, you're very vulnerable as well, like Kathy. But we touched on it last time. But I did want to go a little deeper. Your stepdad, who one of several stepdads who beat you, speak to that, because this is also abuse. And you learn things in that environment that help you to cope but end up being unhealthy. So describe what you went through as a child in a little more detail. Did you ever have reconciliation?

[Tim Bush]

Well, I did when my brother passed away at age 43 in hospice. His dad was on the other side of the bed.

[Jim Daly]

And he was the stepdad.

[Tim Bush]

He was the stepdad. And I did tell him, I want you to know that I forgive you for what you did to me when I was a little boy. But I did that for my brother. I was not a Christian. Somehow something came into me to say that.

[Jim Daly]

And you're right at the bed. Your brother's hearing this?

[Tim Bush]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow.

[Jim Daly]

And how did the stepdad respond?

[Tim Bush]

He just didn't really say much, and he just kind of backed away and. But he did put me in the hospital twice from beating me. But my mom married another guy that also abused me physically, too. Looking back at it, though, I want you to know that caused a lot in my marriage, because Jake in counseling, he said, that's one of the deals. You're trying to survive. You're not going to let anybody control you. You're going to control everything. Because if you lose control, then there's a chance that you're going to get hurt because of your childhood.

[Jim Daly]

You know what's interesting with that? You think of those things that happened to you, and then I think God's given us those abilities to protect ourselves, but then we need to hand it over to God. It's as if he's given us the tools as a child to get through horrific things, and we create these mechanisms of coping. And then when the Lord says, okay, you got to give that back to me now. And how many adults never find that moment? They live in that control. They live in that victimization. You need that moment to say, okay, Lord, I got through that. Thank you.

[Tim Bush]

First Peter 5, 7. Cast all your cares on me. You know, so it's.

[Jim Daly]

Yeah, I get it, but it's so hard. It's so hard. But how many crippled, emotionally crippled adults are there out there, even in the church, that have not been able to make that jump to say, God, I know you own it all. Romans 8, 28. All things work for good. Seriously, all things. Seriously. I mean, look what you guys have gone through. Can you say that? That all things have worked for good?

[Tim Bush]

I believe so, because without a doubt, because I can see how he's using that for others to help them. We don't know what part of our story is going to help somebody. And we wrote the book just so if we could help one couple. And that happened early on. We know that. So it was pretty cool. So I get it. And we. We need to share our story out of obedience to the Lord.

[John Fuller]

And that makes me think of 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, where Paul talks about our comfort that we receive as being used by God to pass comfort on to others. This is focused on the Family with Jim Daly. And today we're talking about how God can heal your marriage no matter how hopeless it seems. Tim and Kathy Bush have a terrific Book. It's called Sex on the First, A Story of a Broken Beginning to a Radically Transformed Marriage. Get a copy of the book from us here at the ministry. When you click the link in the show notes.

[Jim Daly]

You know, yesterday you mentioned Pastor Bill, who counseled you even to leave the same church, go to a different church. Right. Speak to the importance of the people in your lives that were those mentors. They may not have carried the label, but in some cases they did. But speak to just the importance of where you're at today. You must go into a church and you look around and you could probably have a sixth sense of a couple that's in trouble. You could probably interact with a couple for 10 minutes and your spiritual noses can sniff that.

[Tim Bush]

It definitely happens.

[Jim Daly]

Yeah. In that context, then how do you become that mentor? How do others like us. How do we become that mentor? Alert.

[Kathy Bush]

Let me say something to that. That when you say that, I think about Tim and I and not having those mentors. And that's why it's so important when we are talking to couples or we'll have a group of couples over and we're like, you guys need to be sharing this with other people because people just don't know. I remember when I was handed that book Experiencing God and just knew New.

[Jim Daly]

Christian because you wanted me to read it.

[Kathy Bush]

I read it and I thought, why has nobody told me me these things? And I just realized it's so important. Like when Pastor Mel told Tim, you need to be praying with Kathy.

[Tim Bush]

This is a great story.

[Kathy Bush]

He comes home. We had been reading the Bible. He comes home and he says, mel says, I need to be praying with you. So I was like, okay. So Tim starts praying. So every day, Tim's praying.

[Tim Bush]

Fifteen years ago, Tim's praying.

[Kathy Bush]

He's saying a prayer. We're reading the Bible. He's praying. Ten months later, I finally looked at him and I said, do you think when you get done praying, you cannot say in Jesus name in case I have something to say? So we could pray together? But Mel said, you need to be praying with Kathy. So he took it as he needs to be praying. So now our. You know when you said that about couples praying together?

[Jim Daly]

Yeah.

[Kathy Bush]

The divorce rate goes way down. Well, that we do not miss a day. We pray together every single day.

[Tim Bush]

And we model that to other couples. Every one of our marriage classes, any kind of a Sunday night deal, no matter what it is, we model it. In fact, we have the couples do it, reach across to each other. You'd be surprised how many Couples that have been going to the Christian church, believers 25, 30 years, never prayed together.

[Jim Daly]

Well, I think that. And maybe not reading the word together too. That combination is so big. And we're seeing it in all the research on the strength of marriage, strength of family. But I was really curious about your kids because they're watching this marriage that's disastrous. And I don't know how much you shielded the kids when they were younger, but how did just speak to that process of them watching this? Your three children, at what age did they ever say to you, mommy, why do you and Daddy fill in the blank? And then what did they see now at the end? And they've all become believers, which is awesome.

[Kathy Bush]

Well, for one thing, in our book, in the QR videos, all of our kids are in there. And so it's fun to watch those videos because they're all taped at different times, but yet they're telling the same story.

[Tim Bush]

This is our married kids too. So three biological, three married. So all of our kids, they all talk in laws too.

[Kathy Bush]

And the big, the biggest thing with the kids, you know, when they were little, I mean, they, they say, you know, I was there when they were little. I was the, the on hands mom and Tim was working. And you know, I, they would say, you know, I did a good job and we shielded them, you know, during those years, Tim just wasn't around a lot. He was working a lot. And, and then, but as they got older and they heard the fights and, and TJ says in one of the videos, they, he'd hear us yelling late at night and wondered when we were going to get a divorce. And so. But when things changed for us when we gave our life to the Lord, you know, there they were watching like.

[Tim Bush]

They were suspect of it too, a little bit. Another self help thing.

[Kathy Bush]

They thought, they wondered how long it was going to last.

[Jim Daly]

Right?

[Kathy Bush]

And a lot of our family did. Wondered how long it was going to last and thought we were just, you know, it was just another thing that mom and dad were doing. But now it's been 16. 16.

[Jim Daly]

We'll be 16 years.

[Kathy Bush]

16 years.

[Tim Bush]

16 years.

[Jim Daly]

Yeah.

[Tim Bush]

Well, TJ would say it wasn't different that we were even going to church, but he said it was a little weird how we went about it because all of a sudden we were all in like a fire hose. Even our business. We were a BMW dealer. We changed everything. We closed on Sundays, we took all the car pictures off the walls. We put Fruit of the Spirit paintings on the wall, scriptures on the TVs instead of ESPN. I mean, it was. I mean, everything changed. Music. Yeah.

[John Fuller]

I wanted to ask you about that, Tim, because you had your boys working with you. They're my partners, and they saw these changes, and it was kind of distressing to them. You were kind of a Jesus freak.

[Tim Bush]

Well, they didn't like it. They didn't like it. They talked to their mom.

[Kathy Bush]

Oh. TJ called me one day and he says, mom, you have to get dad to stop. And I said, what? What are you talking about? And he goes, mom, we are a BMW car dealership. We are selling cars here. And dad is talking to all of our customers about Jesus. And he's praying with the customers. You got to get him to stop.

[Jim Daly]

That's awesome.

[Tim Bush]

I was a fire hose. But we know what we were selling. We were hitting all of our numbers with BMW. Our customer satisfaction was the top in the country. We were really doing well.

[Jim Daly]

You probably saved a couple of marriages.

[Tim Bush]

Along the way, but there were.

[John Fuller]

But there were tensions with the boys.

[Tim Bush]

Yeah, especially with Blake. We had the music. As soon as I would leave the dealership, he would change it and I would change it back. Well, finally we had cameras everywhere. And over the top of the sound system, it was a high, high end sound system. And in the closet, I put a sign. Whoever changes this next does not work here anymore. And I sign my name. So I get called to the sales office. Tim Bush, sales office. And so I go to the sales office. He said, dad, I'm going to close the door, and I want you to listen to me, Dad, I don't even know who you are anymore. We're trying to run a business here, and I don't know what to do with you.

[Jim Daly]

How old is he?

[Tim Bush]

He's at this time, I want to say mid-20s. And I said, so, Blake, let me ask you this. And this came from the Lord, because it wasn't for me. He said, did you like me better before? Do you like me better now? He said, you know, now that you say that, I like you better now. I said, okay, dude, let's just get back to work and not mess with the radio anymore. Everything's good, right?

[Jim Daly]

It all gets back to the radio.

[Tim Bush]

But the coolest thing, he talks about this in one of the QR code videos, too. He said, you know, after I talked to my dad, I kind of felt like maybe I need to do something with my faith. And it wasn't very long after that he gave his life to the Lord.

[Kathy Bush]

And not only did he give his life to the Lord, he actually got up at the church that we were attending, the largest church in the Tri Cities, and shared his testimony.

[Jim Daly]

So, yeah, well. And I think, you know, when I look at that, how many parents are going, I totally blew it spiritually. I didn't model the right things for my kids. That right there demonstrates that can be corrected. I mean, the result is in the hands of the Lord. But for you to be able to have that conversation with your son, that's a brilliant conversation.

[Tim Bush]

Well, Jim, we talked about those stakes in the ground yesterday. And I think when you really think about your stakes, when you think about how your impact goes, 100 years from now, no one's going to know us, but what we do today could impact our great, great, great grandkids that we don't even know. And so if we're literally loving Jesus and accept him, and our kids do, and our grandkids do, and we see that, there's a video, our favorite one, it's the shortest one too, about our grandkids and our grandkids talk about us and how we are in marriage and our littlest grandkids. She says, when I grow up, I want to have coffee with my husband.

[Jim Daly]

And.

[Tim Bush]

And the reason she says that, because she sees Kath and I drinking coffee and reading the Bible and praying together. She's six now, but she was four and a half when that happened. So they see everything.

[Jim Daly]

Yeah, well, again, in that modeling, you know, we don't understand how we model things before Christ, after Christ. And if we're not doing it well, the kids see it and they understand it and they start to repeat it. That's the breaking of the cycles that you've talked about the last couple of days. And this has been terrific. I mean, that's what's so good, Kathy. And really, let's end with both of you answering this question. You know, those couples that feel stuck, they're identifying. Your story has so much, so many touch points with people. Whether it was childhood abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, whatever it might have been, how that distorted how you process life, and then how God reeled you in. Even with all those shortcomings, I am a amazed that you guys are married. I mean, it's that kind of story. It's like, oh, my. If a couple can survive this, couples can survive anything. And you guys have demonstrated that. So really, it's that last piece of advice to the couple watching or listening going, man, we're living part of that story. What do we need to do to have what they have? What do you say to them?

[Kathy Bush]

Well, first I want to say not are we just married? But we are in a thriving marriage because there's a difference because we were just married for a lot of years. But I would say the biggest thing is hang in there, be committed, and with the power of Christ you can have a thriving marriage. And I know for Tim and I, our commitment to being in God's word every day. You've talked about that so much and I know there's so many Christians out there that don't read God's word. And if you don't know the blueprint for your life and what God wants for your life, you're not going to know. I didn't know what God wanted for me as a wife. I had no idea what my role was as a wife until I read it in the Word. I mean, he tells us how to live our life and how to live it so that we're blessed. And I believe that if you're a wife and you're struggling in your marriage, the first thing that you need to do is get your life right with Christ. And that's how you're going to have a great marriage. You're going to be a great wife. But it's just getting lined up with Christ.

[Jim Daly]

And it's not just the head knowledge of that. It's got to be the heart. That's head, it's reading it, it's living it. And when you make mistakes, apologize and keep moving, I think those are the paybacks. Tim, any that's pretty good. I know if you can add to it.

[Tim Bush]

Well, I really do have just a couple as I agree with Kath and everything she said, I can tell you that when you realize that your wife and guys, I'm talking to you. Whether you're not a Christian or you're thinking about it or you're a long term believer, your wife's a gift from God. She's a daughter of the King. And I want her to feel that way and grabbing her hand and praying with her. And then when I say every day I thank God for the gift of my wife and she hears that, I think there's something powerful in that. Every wife wants to feel like she's a gift. And other than my salvation, Kath is my greatest gift on this earth. And I couldn't always say that because I used to think I was my greatest gift. And that's a complete transformation because she is so amazing. But seeing our sons see that in their wives and seeing our grandkids see us and how they interact with Kath and their girlfriends. I love it and I think long term believers could catch something from that too.

[Jim Daly]

Without a doubt. Without a doubt. Tim and Kathy, your honesty has been so refreshing and to those of you listening, I hope you feel a renewed energy to be intentional in building your family on a foundation of faith. Whatever stage of life you're in, we have so many great resources to help you do that. One of those resources is Hope Restored. If you're facing a crisis in your marriage or even if you just feel stuck in a rut, which many of us married couples do from time to time, I hope you'll consider attending. And you know divorce statistics are still devastating. Too many marriages are breaking up, but particularly Christian marriages and we can help reduce that number significantly. Hope restored has an 80% post two year success rate. That means 80% of the couples that have gone through the program two years later are still married and doing better. That is worth investigating. One of the ways you can participate in ministry with us is by donating. When you make a donation of any amount, you can get a copy of Tim and Cathy's book Sex on the First Date as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry and helping other couples.

[John Fuller]

Yeah, find information about Hope Restored. Donate and get your copy of Tim and Kathy's book Sex on the First Date when you call 800, the letter A and the word Family 800-232-6459 or. We've got details for you in the show notes and thanks for listening Today to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

[Kathy Bush]

Sprinkle some love into your marriage this month with the Loving well podcast from Focus on the Family. I'm Erin Smalley and I host the podcast with my husband, Dr. Greg Smalley and our good friend John Fuller. We chat about how to put Christ at the center of your relationship, deepen your love, and have a marriage that truly thrives. Listen today at focusonthefamily.com lovingwell or wherever you get your podcasts.