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It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. This week on Live in the Bream, I am so excited because I get to welcome two of my friends and you are going to love this new project. They both are leaders, teachers, authors in their own right, doing such amazing, important things, having incredible conversations that matter to your life, to your profession, to culture.
But what they've got now is a brand new book called The Fight for Us. Overcome what divides to build a marriage that thrives. It is excellent. Rebecca and Gabe Lyons, welcome to Live in the Bream. Oh, thank you for having us. We love time with you, Shannon. Yes, thanks for having us. I feel the same way. We're going to live it together for about 20 minutes here. So listen, the new book is,
You guys are so transparent. That's why I think this book is going to be so helpful to people, because you're really honest about the tough parts of marriage, the great parts of marriage, and more importantly, how you can make it better no matter what stage your marriage is in. And we'll get to some of these specifics. But I love how in the beginning I marked this and I just put in the margin, ha.
where you talk about like you can fight about anything. You're like, we forget about, we fight about everything. It's how to hold a golf club, how to respond to strangers, how to raise chickens, how to stack firewood. And then you get to the really big things too, like about raising kids and all these other things. I mean, marriage really at its core is about negotiating our differences.
Yes, that is well said. You're right. Absolutely. And, you know, and also not making it like I'm right, you're wrong. No, it's not a moral issue. It's just different. We have different opinions about things. Yeah, Shannon, you know, as a lawyer, you can go into lawyer mode, I bet, with
Your spouse can try to. Yeah, you can try to win the fight. I think that was my theory early in marriage was one of us gets to win. But we learned early when you win, you probably lost. And so it's in the battle, but not the war. Yeah. So we try to turn our energy towards how do we fight for the marriage and and better understand why we're fighting anyway and what what brings those things up.
what's the roots of those things and how do we heal by learning how to talk with one another again and find healing versus just kind of getting distant and learning to have a status quo marriage that's really not thriving, which is the state of a lot of marriages today. And that was a really important part of the book, I thought, too, because I think
I think if you've been married for any period of time, you're getting past the honeymoon phase, you know, you got to deal with reality. And there are moments where you get to an impasse or you just feel like you're talking past each other, you're butting heads. And then you kind of get into this resignation period. But you guys talk about that like, well, it is what it is.
Yes, we're not going anywhere. We're married. We're doing the daily things. We are going through life. But it's not thriving. We know this could be better. Right. Well, sometimes we just get comfortable in that status quo because when we tried to press in in the past, things got elevated or escalated. And then what happens is when that conflict continues,
In effort to preserve our internal stress and to find some regulation even in our relationship, we wind up avoiding the topics that really do need a third party, need conversations, need discussion. Because they go back into those origin stories of ours. You know, a lot of us were raised in homes where our parents were born in the silent generation. Like they're
they never really were modeled what it looked like to talk about the deeper things or the emotional health. You know, they were just trying to put food on the table, find a roof over their head. Survivors have a different lens on like this emotional health. But now that conversation is more normalized in our current day.
And we need to have the tools to be able to get below the surface what's happening beneath the fight. And we also think, Shannon, that the enemy, like the enemy is not your spouse. And yet so many times that's the lie we start to believe is that if my spouse would change, if they would...
talk to me differently or they'd start to have a different type of behavior, then we'd be fine. Like it's not me. And I think Rebecca and I are trying to suggest that each of us takes responsibility and has to take responsibility for our part in the marriage, in the conflict, in changing the dynamics and changing the formula because we decide that we're going to humble ourselves and
and seek to really serve the other person. And when we change that dynamic, everything else can change versus agreeing with the true enemy who's planting these seeds and accusing your spouse of all kinds of different things and getting you to agree with it. And that can create all kinds of division and
that the only way through that is to acknowledge it, ask for forgiveness and say, hey, can we have a reset? Can we start over this week? Yeah. And for that, you know, taking responsibility for Gabe and our relationship was him acknowledging, I'm not in touch with my feelings. I don't even know what I'm feeling. When you ask me how I'm feeling, I feel like a deer in headlights, like, should I be feeling something? Like he kind of had shut that down, didn't really know how to access that, much less give it a name.
And then I had to own my part. When that happened, when Gabe started to just not meet me emotionally, I did make agreement with that lie of resignation. I started to kind of whisper, it is what it is. He will never be able to be that for me. And then the hard danger of that is if you go from it is what it is, eventually you might slip into saying, I don't think I can do this.
And that's just that intrusive thought, that nudge, I believe does come from the enemy that just says, this isn't gonna get better.
And that's just a despairing thought when you start to think about, no, we were put together as one in covenant before God to raise these kids and launch them into the world and stay, stay, stay till the end. And so I had to repent of that with Gabe and just say, I don't want to think these things. I feel discouraged. So finding each other, turning back toward each other when we feel like there's a drift is very important.
Yeah. And you guys have really practical stuff in the book, conversations that you want people to have and questions that I think are so important on all these other topics. If you can set everything aside and we'll talk about distraction in a minute because it's just it's 2025. That's how things work. But really giving people the conversation starters to get to these places that you need to go. We'll have more live in the Bream in a moment.
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Again, we're talking to Rebecca and Gabe Lyons, their brand new book, The Fight for Us, Overcome What Divides to Build a Marriage That Thrives. I want to go back to something before we miss it in the conversation that's so important that you guys talk about.
is this origin story because we all come from different experiences and places and traditions and families. It was one of the things I thought was most helpful that our pastor and our premarital counseling said to us, like, you guys got to remember, you really do come from two different places and as crazy in love as you are right now and how much you see the best in each other.
you do have different grooves that have been worn into the way that you think about things and where you came from. And that's good. But you do need to be aware of those differences and how they now influence the marriage you're trying to build today. Mm hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Our origin story is a big deal. I didn't realize that. I thought the way I was raised was great and everything about it was normal and that probably Rebecca had had a similar experience and it does become a hard reality when you realize, wow, she has different expectations. Her father was acted differently in the home than my father did. And her mom responded differently to the challenges that they were faced with than my mom did. And so we came from these different places and we had to relearn the
how to relate to one another, how to better understand and be curious about the other person's story. I think that's the biggest lesson and takeaway that we've learned about origin stories is to encourage people, be curious about your spouse, not so judgmental. I think it's easy to judge and say, oh, well, you're wrong or they didn't do it right. Versus Rebecca, tell me about your childhood. Tell me...
How your parents responded when you came home and told them you'd made drum major for your band. Were they excited for you? Tell me about your Christmases and what those were like. Tell me about your experience with your first boyfriend and what age were you and what was that like? There were no boyfriends before Gabe. Yeah, only Gabe. First kiss at the altar, right? That's right. But curiosity in a relationship, I think, is...
so many good things and it brings out some fun. It helps you get to know each other better, give each other just new perspective that you kind of lose sometimes over years. And it does help to lose the stereotypes. I think that like many,
men, men are stoic and women are emotional. You know, in my upbringing, my dad was actually very in touch with this feeling. So I saw a man, a father figure able to, you know, express himself and be emotive. And my mom, she was like hard charging leader, you know, she kept the ship afloat. And so I almost saw a little bit of a reversal in like,
a strong dominant female leader as a mother as well and an emotive father, whereas Gabe's parents were the opposite. And so it's interesting, Gabe going like, "I didn't know how to access feelings that wasn't modeled in my father." So I thought that was an interesting way to approach this. Yeah. And when we look backwards, it helps us go forward and it shouldn't be something that we're afraid of. I think for a lot of men, I think there's women that feel this way too.
You know, the workplace sometimes can drive us to kind of move past things and to just move forward and not look back. And when we find some sort of success in that, but that does not work in our marriage. And so in our marriage, we have to recalibrate and go, no, we've got to look backwards so that we can heal, so that we can work through some of those pain, painful moments that we've tried to.
cover up and push far down, but it's harming our marriage and it's not allowing us to have the deepest intimacy and connection.
And you guys talk about, I wanted to make sure I get to this, this issue of distraction, the dopamine of distraction, because it is true for almost all of us, unless you completely are a Luddite who doesn't have any technology, isn't distracted by anything. You know, when we find out that they, you know, will stumble upon a people group who has not been exposed to all this stuff, you know, just out in the middle of nowhere somewhere, I'm like, man,
man, they must have time to like think about stuff and talk to each other. And, you know, we are just so distracted by the hits that we get from the likes that we get from somebody looking at what we're putting into the world, looking at their stuff. You write about this, Gabe, you say this battle against distraction has plagued me for as long as I can remember. And it really shows up when even if you're sitting next to each other on the couch, you can feel very alone. If that person's in a completely different world and we're all guilty of it at some point.
Yeah, I think we get this dopamine hit, you know, coping mechanisms many times and distracting ourselves from the deeper relationship that's right in front of us. And that can be as anything from hobbies. I mean, things that are really good for us, but gone too far or things we turn to because of pain. And our our hope is, is that couples can.
We'll learn to recognize the things that have become like a dopamine hit. It's become a coping mechanism. It's actually not healthy. It's distracting you from going deeper and to set some of those things aside and make time for one another. Yeah. Part of the busyness, I've been called busy Rebecca before and I don't think it's a compliment. And it's partly going, okay, why do I need to fill my calendar? Is there something I'm running from? Is there something I'm aspiring toward? Yeah.
Is there, do I have a hard time just being present right now in the moment and being still? You know, the Lord invites us into be still and know that he is God to like rest and wait sometimes. And I think you can't have these intimate moments as a couple if you're always running. You know, you miss each other, quite frankly, in all the transitions between appointment to the next, to the next, then
Then all of a sudden you wake up one day and you're just roommates. All you talk about is your calendar or your kids or what's next on the to-do list. And yet you're missing each other's hearts because it takes time to cultivate those deeper things that maybe we're just missing because we're staying busy. So exploring and asking why do I have to say yes to all these things? Why can't we slow down? What is behind that that we're maybe running from or hiding from that we need to get honest about?
Yeah, and you guys talk too about all kinds of different seasons that you've had, those super busy ones, the overwhelming parts of parenthood and starting a new organization, all these different things you've had to juggle. But you talk about that too in the context of community and how we all need those support structures to be with other people that will encourage us, will mentor us, and frankly, to give us accountability. So let's talk about how community can be an important part of marriage.
Yeah, I think a third party is so healthy in any marriage. So it can obviously you can have seasons of counseling, but a lot of young couples don't really have access to that resources for that or can find a godly counselor that's even available right now.
And I think having people that are in your lives, that are other couples, that love you both, that are invested in your family being healthy and flourishing, that you can go, hey, we're kind of struggling. I feel like we're missing each other. We are kind of reactive and...
And I can tell I have a little bit of resentment creeping in. Inviting other couples and leading with vulnerability with that, I think all of a sudden creates this third person who's objective that can help ask both of us questions together and go, hey, what are some ways that you are triggered by Rebecca or ways that I'm triggered by Gabe? And why do you think the hurt is there? You know, it's almost like it's free counseling for starters. Yeah.
And you know that they're not going anywhere. They love you both. They've seen you since the beginning. We have people still in our lives that we confide in that were part of our wedding. They stood next to us 28 years ago. And so we go to them still at year 19 and year 22, and we'll be with them to celebrate here in another month.
That we all turn 50. And that's what you need. You need somebody who's not going anywhere and that loves the two of you together and is going to champion for the both of you. Yeah. One of the fatal mistakes in a marriage is isolation and a couple that thinks they can just figure it out themselves and
So many couples just live marriage in a stuck pattern that they don't know how to get out of. And when you're in that cycle, you need an outside party. You need a friend. They don't have to be a counselor. It just needs to be someone else that you can open up to and say, hey, we're stuck. Would you talk with us? Would you pray with us?
We've done that before. We've had to go to multiple couples that were friends of ours at moments to say, hey, can we process this with you? We've had couples come to us. We shared we were with our community last night and several couples, and we just reminded all of them, hey, if you're ever stuck, will you please just reach out to us?
Because, A, I want you to know it's normal to be stuck. Like this doesn't mean you've married the wrong person or you're headed towards divorce. So let's remove the fear of that. And then secondly, there's no shame in acknowledging that you're stuck. Because when you acknowledge it and you're vulnerable, we can come around you. We can process it. We can help. And we do need each other, I think, to see our marriages thrive.
Yeah, we do. And it does normalize some of the things that you get frightened about. I can remember even just a few weeks into being married, like getting in some ridiculous argument and thinking, well, like he knows I'm not going anywhere. So now I'm stuck with him. And did I marry the wrong person? I mean, like the crazy things you think when you're 25, you're like, right.
You know, just to have somebody say like, oh no, I felt that way about my wife or my husband. And you know, you're fine. You're going to work through that. But here's how you get to the other side of that. I mean, it's just really helpful to have other couples. And like you said, people that you trust and that love you and you love them. You also talk about this sense of play. And I think sometimes that gets back at that point of like, you're kind of resigned that you're existing. You're not going to leave the marriage. Everything's going to be fine. Right.
But maybe you've lost kind of your sense of wonder and play and joy about each other and about marriage. Yeah, we all come into marriage with a lot of buckets. We have a lot of interests and hobbies, and that's what kind of drew us to one another. And then after a few years in a marriage with a lot of responsibility and bills, all of a sudden those buckets can easily dwindle down to work and parenting. And often we're like, we're not fun anymore. We're not that interesting. We're not even
You know, we don't even like to be around ourselves. We can't stay awake. Exactly. What is happening? And so we found this as well. We're now at 28 years, but it took about, I would say around year 19 or 20, I realized Gabe loves golf and he's not going to stop playing. So I can either, you know, resent him or join him. And so I decided to take some lessons and go, you know, this could be a thing we do together, you know,
you know, for the next few decades, hopefully, or maybe it's pickleball or maybe it's a game night. Maybe it's fishing, right? Shannon. Yes, it is. Something to do. It's, it's just saying, Hey, we're going to take up some hobbies. I cook now more with Rebecca. I'm her sous chef. And I don't, I don't really love that honestly, but it's been a good thing for us. Like we do it together. It's fun. And, and I think that's the thing as you grow together, um,
And you can humble yourself and go, I'm going to learn some new skills. And that's something Rebecca and I really have tried to do is learn together, bring one another along in the journeys that we're on so that we don't have two different life experiences and then hope we can stay compatible. It's like we're going to be intentional to grow together and experience things together. Yeah. Yeah. And it takes a thought process and a decision to do that.
You guys also talk transparently in this book about physical intimacy, which you don't always see, you know, Christian speakers or authors talking about on the regular. Why did you guys think it was important to include that in this book about fighting for marriage?
Well, we believe it's part of the tension, quite frankly. It's a big one that people don't feel comfortable talking about. And our premise in the book is if you're not talking, you're not healing. And especially in the area of sex and intimacy. And maybe there's just mis-expectations there. There's like, we all come into marriage with different backgrounds and we don't arrive with our opinions on any of these topics, whether it's sex or money or parenting or career. We don't come from a
like a clean slate. We all have some backstory to this. And so just joining together and going like, okay, what's your, what was your expectation with this? How was this model for you? How did you learn about this as a child before you came into marriage and relationships? We just think it's important. And the church, and we believe God designed sex for flourishing, for families. It's the perfect union and communion that he ordained.
And so we don't have to have shame around it, but we do need to be curious and go, where are the hurts in this topic? You know, what are the desires and the longings that we would enjoy this, not feel begrudging or feel resentful or withhold?
And so it is a big conversation that we believe the church should be having. Yeah, that's Rebecca and I's premise is growing up in more of a purity culture in the church. We didn't talk enough about sex. And so we came into marriage, perhaps not having the right vision of what it was meant to be, what role it played in a marriage, how high of a priority should this be? And I think a lot of couples today, it's such a private matter. There's not a lot of conversation. People don't even know how they measure up. Even in the book, we lay out the data of,
of how frequently people are having sex at different ages, just so everybody can understand, you know, hey, 45 year olds, it's once or twice a week. People who are 80 and still married, Shannon, this is wild, but still having sex. You know, it's like the majority. I liked that part when I told him that.
He was very happy to hear that. I'm like, wow, I didn't know the parts still worked at 80. This is amazing. Yeah. So to look forward to. So I think we just want to open the dialogue up so that couples have this conversation, because what we talked to a couple a few weeks ago who've been married 30 years, they have seven children. They say your book got us talking about sex in a way that we we actually just don't talk about it.
Like we have sex, but it's not been a good conversation. And now we're having healthy conversations about it. So that's our point with this book is to help couples have dialogue, learn together, grow together, get to know each other again in a fresh way. And that's all part of how you fight for your marriage.
Yeah. And again, the book is The Fight for Us, Overcome What Divides to Build a Marriage that Thrives. Rebecca and Gabe Lyons, I'm assuming people can get this book anywhere, but how can they find out about the other ministries and things that you guys are doing? Because you actually have marriage workshops among other things that you do too.
Yeah. So at RebeccaLyons.com, you can learn all about retreats we do. We do a retreat in November that 50 couples will come to every year. And that's a great two days to go deeper into marriage. And then there's a lot of free resources at RebeccaLyons.com slash marriage that we've created where people can get access to a masterclass that we've created talking about marriage. They can also claim some free gifts when they buy the book that gives them a deeper dive into emotional health and conversations we've had with psychologists about our
feelings and some of those topics that are harder for husbands and wives to navigate. And so in addition to that, we lead an organization called Think Media. It's spelled T-H-I-N-Q, media.com. And we do events and have content online all the time that's dealing with cultural issues. And so marriage is one of those cultural issues we care a lot about. And I think in the next generation, there's a lot of questions about why should I get married?
Is it important? Does it matter? Wouldn't I be better off alone? And that's why this conversation is so important today, so that our kids get a vision for what a flourishing marriage can be like and why it is such a great idea as God's idea. Well, I wholeheartedly agree. And this book is so practical that whether it'd be a great gift for people that are engaged, getting married, but people have been married 30, 40, 50 years, everybody's going to get something out of this that will spark those questions, those conversations that I think will
only bring you closer to your spouse, maybe work through some things and just really be joyful and encouraged about what a gift marriage is. So thank you guys, not only for writing this, but for modeling it and for all that you do, all the good things that you put into the world. Thank you, Shannon. We love you guys.
Love y'all too. God bless you. That's it for this week's Live in the Dream. Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Fox News Audio presents the Fox Nation Investigates Podcast, Evil Next Door. Exploring the life and crimes of five serial predators from across the United States. Listen and follow now at foxtruecrime.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.