Chad Robichaux: A Divine Re-Direction
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This week on Live in the Bream, somebody I hope will be such an encouragement to you on many different levels. He's got a specific focus, but I know a lot of what he shares will benefit you in so many different areas of your life. And part of it is that he's so vulnerable about his life.

own life. He's a former Marine MMA fighter, bestselling author and founder of Mighty Oaks Foundation. By the way, it serves active duty and veteran communities with faith-based combat trauma and resiliency programs. We'll try to get that in as well. But we're here to talk about his new book, Fight for Us, Win Back the Marriage God Intends for You by Chad Robichaux.

And Chad, please correct me if I'm getting your last name pronounced incorrectly. Great to have you. Nope. Thanks for having me on. And you got it. You got it right. So thank you. So what moved you to write this book? I mean, you do a lot of work. You yourself have served our country and have been through the return to quote unquote normal life or civilian life. You know what those struggles are like in marriage and family, certainly impacted as individual struggle as well.

Yeah. Well, for me, you know, Kathy and I, we've been married 26 years. Both of us came from divorced homes. I'm from Southern Louisiana where there's a lot of dysfunctional families and never really seen a good marriage.

healthy marriage outside of my grandparents. So everyone I really knew had been divorced. And after 15 years of marriage, Kathy and I faced divorce. I was a force recon Marine, military service, especially in the special operations community with the operation tempo and how much you work.

uh, it's very hard in a marriage. We have, you know, we, Kathy did a great job of raising our three kids and being a great mom, but I was gone a lot. And then I did eight deployments to Afghanistan and that took a real toll on our marriage. And I came home, I was diagnosed with PTSD. I went into a very deep downward spiral. And during that time, I really just dove into my sport that I did on the side as, as a professional MMA fighter. And,

really found a lot of success doing that. I won a world title and, and all these things, just like I'd been successful as a professional in the military, I was successful as a professional athlete. But meanwhile, I was neglecting my family and my responsibilities as a husband and father. And so, you know, that ended in a point in my life where three years after Afghanistan, we're filing for divorce. We're separating, uh, we're separating after I had

it came out that I was in a, in an affair. Uh, and we just decided, Hey, let's get divorced, sell our home. And we just go, go our separate ways because we really fell out of love or grown apart. All the excuses that we would have, you know, in those times, our kids won't have to see the fighting anymore. Just all the excuses most people have to get divorced. We bought into those and decided to make that move. And,

During that time we were separated is when I hit the rock bottom of my life. And I found myself three months separated from my family. And my wife and I went two separate directions. She went to church, started praying for me.

And I went and took this big MMA fight, fought on Showtime and really just pursued two different trajectories in our life. And she was finding healing and restoration. And I was going deeper and darker and ended up at a point to where I realized what I had done to my family. After this big fight, I came home and laying in my bed just thinking, wow,

Like I really have let down my family and meanwhile have been successful professionally. And this thought came over me. Maybe my family would be sad without me, but they would be better off. And I made a decision to take my life. And, you know, that same hopeless thought finds a home in the hearts of 20 plus veterans every single day. And I attempt to take my life.

by shooting myself. And I'm thankful by the grace of God that Kathy stepped in and intervened. And in that moment where she came in and came in on me trying to shoot myself, we got this big argument. She asked me how I could do everything I did in the military and as a professional fighter, all these things that she saw me do. She's like, how could you do all of that? When it comes to your family, you'll quit. And

And that question just radically impacted me and challenged me. She was right. I've been successful professionally when it came to the most important things like being a husband and being a father. I quit and including my will to live. And so I made a radical decision at that point to get help. And there was a lot of things I did in my road to recovery. But the most profound thing was the restoration of my faith through the mentorship of a local man in the church that Kathy was going to that led me in a relationship with Christ. It really taught me how to not...

not forget the things that happened to me because I couldn't forget the things that happened to me, but how to choose differently in spite of those things. In other words, I didn't have to let my past define my future. The things that had led me to being in a closet with my pistol in my hand trying to take my life were not the bad things that happened to me in my childhood or losing 15 friends in Afghanistan, but it was the choices I made in response to those things. And this biblical mentorship that I was getting from this guy, this man taught me how to make better decisions and in the intentional,

of making better decisions. I found restoration in my life, my own brokenness.

And in my marriage, in my relationship with my kids, I found hope again. And ultimately, I found purpose again. And part of that purpose manifested for me and a deep burden that God put on my heart to share the things that I discovered in my journey with others. And that led me to founding the Mighty Oaks Foundation, to writing this book, Fight for Us, realizing that I had discovered some of the principles that not only rescued my marriage and my life, but could help so many other people

with so many other people struggling, not just in the military, but around the world right now. Yeah. And you're doing such an amazing thing using your really deep struggles and trials, being transparent about what you've been through to fuel, hopefully for other people, a lifeline, a little bit of hope that they can see through your story that

it's possible to hit that really deep, dark low, but find your way back out. And your story is one that so many people look around and see folks that they look very successful, very happy, that they have what they want in the world's eyes. And then we're stunned when something happens like you considering taking your life.

I think about this young woman who is Miss USA. She was a lawyer, beautiful, successful in New York City who recently took her life. And it sparks all these conversations about outward success and...

Sometimes the inability that people have to reach out for help, instead spending all their energy, keeping it looking like all the balls are in the air. They're juggling it. It's great. They're successful. They're happy. Their Instagram feed is perfect. How much would you say that people around us may be struggling more than we're aware and how important it is to reach out?

I think it's very true. And so many people do struggle that you would never imagine. I mean, in the work that I'm in now with Mighty Oaks Foundation, I've spoken in the last 10 years, I've spoken over 250,000 active duty troops. And we've had over 4,000 people come to our programs, our recovery programs. And through that, what I discovered has been shocking, sadly shocking to me, how many people are like,

from the special operations community that came from that are stellar achievers uh who are very respected in their communities people who are hold the rank of general and the colonel and Sergeant majors in charge of units they're dealing with the same things that everyone else is dealing with uh they're depressed they're having anxiety they're uh they're feeling like alone and uh and but they had it so well and I think back when I was going through this I was

you know, at a JSOC task force in the top level of special operations. And I'm working around all these guys and we're all hiding our own struggles from one another. I was hiding mine because I thought if these guys knew that I was having panic attacks, that I was going through these physiological symptoms of numbness in my face and feeling my throat was swelling shut and dealing with anxiety the way I was, I thought those guys would think I was weak and not help me, but judge me.

I thought if I went to mental health, it would compromise my profession. I'd lose my top secret clearance and not be able to do my job anymore. So I didn't ask for help and I tried to handle it myself. And I think there's different reasons people do that, whether they worry about professional consequences or they're embarrassed or they feel like they're all alone and no one will understand. But the truth is we all understand

on some level or another struggle with the same things. And, uh, Stu Weber says in one of his books, whatever's in it is burning in your heart is in the heart of every man. You know, uh, we all deal with the same things, but we are sometimes so unwilling to reach out to others when the truth is, uh,

None of us were meant to carry these things alone. None of us were equipped to carry these things alone. But the most beautiful thing is that none of us have to. There's so many people that are available to help you, people that love you and care about you. And when you can accept the truth of that, then I think that's the first step to getting well. And for us in the veteran community, we make that available through Mighty Oaks, which we do all of our programs for free, including travel.

to all of our, you know, over $4 million a year, we offer a program to veterans and active duty and first responders and spouses. And so people care. That's, I mean, maybe not be a veteran and we could go to Mighty Oaks, but know there's programs out there for all of us and people do care.

Well, it's a beautiful thing to see how others are more than willing to reach out and try to help and make sure it's not an additional burden on the family to get there and get that help. We're talking to Chad Robichaux, who has got the new book out, Fight for Us, Win Back the Marriage God Intends for You. The book is out February 15th, and it's in the context of a military marriage, but applies to all marriages and the real struggles that we go through. And gosh, the last couple of years, if you weren't already struggling, have really poured it on with

you know, losing loved ones, being sick, losing your jobs, figuring out what to do with your kids, you know, with school and everything else. I mean, it's been such a pressure cooker of anxiety and fear and just people feeling overwhelmed. You talk about in your own marriage, how broken it was and the terrible things that happened. And a lot of people at that point would say, there's no way I could ever fall in love with them again. There's no way that we could ever fix this.

Um, let's just, as you said, go our separate ways and, um, just make this claim break and start over. Um, it seems like a bit of a miracle when a marriage can come back from where you were. So how does that happen?

You know, I had someone tell me one time, because I was explaining to them how dead Kathy and I's marriage felt. You know, many nights I'd sleep in a friend's house or my gym where I train at or at one of my kids' bedrooms or even our own bed, like just laying with our backs turned toward each other. And just what we felt like it was a dead marriage. And I remember telling my mentor, Steve Toth at the time, like,

our marriage is dead. Like it's over. There's no, we just don't have the feelings toward each other. We don't have the compatibility or compassion towards each other or don't even like each other. And, uh, and you know, this time he's really mentoring me in the Bible and I'm learning these stories in the Bible. And he says, you believe that God raised Lazarus from the dead. And I'm like, yes, you know, the Bible says, says this story. I believe Jesus did raise Lazarus from the dead. He said, well, then how could he bring your marriage back to life? And, uh, I remember, uh,

Just that story just gave me a sense of hope and thinking that while God can bring things back from the dead, and if he could do that in people, in physical people, then he could do that for our marriage. And so I started trying to discover...

We've been doing it wrong. So how can I do it right? And many people will say there's no blueprint to marriage, but the truth is there is a blueprint to marriage. There's a handbook to marriage. People say there's no handbook to marriage. There is. It's the Bible. We just don't take time to read it. And so I was on this process of aligning my life, calibrating my life to the life God created me to live as a man and making systematic calibrations to make better choices and live better.

And so we thought, well, we can do this for our marriage as well. And so I started aligning my life with biblical principles that the Bible intended us, the way Bible intended us to live marriage. And those, by being intentional about those biblical principles,

It didn't mean my wife and I didn't face problems or get in arguments or have disagreements. And then when we did, we'd have a model in which to calibrate to and make choices in response to those things in order to move forward and end up in a better place. And so we were very intentional about that before we fell back in love, before we even probably liked each other. We were very intentional about that and the way we treated one another. And that ultimately led us to falling back in love and having those emotions and feelings come back. It's not about, I think oftentimes we think,

a marriage relationship is about being happy and in feeling that feeling of love and intimacy that we first meet someone. And, you know, sometimes it has to take action from each other before we'll ever feel those things again. There's times and seasons where you won't feel those things

um but making the right choices and treating each other the way the bible instructs us to treat one another uh it always is going to resurface those those feelings of intimacy and love that we ultimately seek i think both both parties in the marriage we see and so that's what this book really is about the book fight for us is you know fighting for us but means fighting for your your family but how do you fight for your family using these biblical principles and how to align your

marriage got intended. And that's what the book really outlines and illustrates. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment. I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app or get the free podcast at GuyBensonShow.com.

Do you have advice for couples? Because unfortunately, we all know people who are struggling. And I know one going through this right now where one is just checked out, says it's over. I don't want to try to fight. The other is committed. No, I'm not going to let you go. I'm going to keep fighting. I'm not giving up on you. Is there advice that would work in that situation?

Well, I mean, you know, we can never choose what the other person is going to do. And obviously in most relationships, you'll say it takes two. However, you could, you have to take, and we see the teachers in Mighty Oaks. Even if you feel like you're in a situation, you're like the other person's 90% at fault and you're only 10% at fault. Then you have to own a hundred percent of that 10%. And so you do everything you can do. You love your spouse the way you,

God loves us. And you know, how does God loves us unconditionally. And so as long as that spouse is still there, even though they're choosing not to participate, as long as that spouse is still there, hasn't left the home, hasn't left you, then you should, even if they leave the home, I think until there's a divorce, then you should still love them the way God loves us. When me and Kathy were separated and I was in an affair with,

totally toxic towards my wife and children, totally abandoning, abandoning them and being just the worst husband, you know, that I could imagine myself to be. And it's very hard for me to say that about myself now, because it's just really not who I feel like I am, but it's, it's the truth about who I was at that time. Uh, my wife was in a church and I don't mean on Sunday mornings. I mean, during the week going in there and praying for me, uh, and, uh,

And while I was doing this to her and you imagine, how could she be praying for me? I mean, I was totally checked out of my marriage. I didn't want to be married. I didn't want to reconcile. And she was praying, God, let me see Chad the way you see Chad. Let me love Chad the way you love Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way you forgave Chad. That's what she was praying for me. And that's how she was fighting for me when I had totally checked out when I was totally abandoned. And, uh, and, and she probably at that time would have thought our marriage would never be reconciled. Chad would never come around, but she felt that she, she needed to do, uh,

her part fully. And that was for her to love me the way God loves me and, uh, and forgive me the way God forgives me in the, see me the way God sees me. That's a hard thing for people to do. And, you know, Kathy demonstrated that to me. And, uh, and, you know, later on down the road, there was times where I had to repay that for her and see her that way and forgive her that way. And, and, uh, and love her that way. Uh,

Because we're never going to end life. Sometimes one will be more committed than the other. And we need to be there for each other, not just when the other person is strong, but when the other person is weak at times. And that's what a healthy marriage does. Yeah. Like you guys, we've been married 26 years.

And, you know, when younger couples or people come to us and they're engaged or they're newly married, and we always say kind of half jokingly, like you're, if you've been married five minutes, you're going to have a major problem. Um, at some point, I mean, none of us is perfect. We're all sinful, flawed creatures. And we come together with another sinful, flawed creature. And so, um, do you know, there's a potential for world of trouble or for a world of joy. You're probably going to have both over the course of your marriage.

And it's remembering those vows and that commitment and relying on something bigger than yourselves because we are human beings to step in and bridge that gap and repair those relationships. I want to make sure that I get to ask you to. And again, the name of the book is Fight for Us.

It is win back the marriage God intends for you out on February 15th. You're not just fighting for marriage. You're also fighting for folks in Afghanistan. It had been a huge mover in that space, too, because you served many deployments there and serving our country. And, you know, the folks who were left behind and the promises we made and the allies and helpers they were when we needed the most in that country. Can you give us a little update on that as well?

Yeah. You know, at Mighty Oaks Foundation, that's not what we do. We don't go rescue people from a withdrawal of a war zone. But, you know, I was doing this work at Mighty Oaks. And so I had a platform and about to launch an effort like that. And we launched another nonprofit called Save Our Allies. And Save Our Allies is its own 501c3 nonprofit entity now. But the way it started for me was...

in kind of a selfish way, I had my interpreter that I did eight deployments with. He was started off as my interpreter, became a teammate because of my job in special operations. I worked just the two of us together forward operating and going ahead of our unit to help put our unit on target to capture and kill bad guys. And,

I didn't live on a base. I lived in Aziz's home with his wife and children. I played with his family. They had dinner at his home. And so we became a very close, in a very close friendship, not just a working relationship. And he's not just my interpreter. He saved my life on three occasions. I've seen him save multiple Americans' lives. And so I had to go, the SIV process, the interpreter,

uh, immigration process had failed him for six years. It failed so many thousands of other of our allies and a promise that we made to them. And I knew he wasn't going to get out when president Biden announced the withdrawal. I said, I have to go get my friend and I have to get his family. I felt obligated to do that. And I put together a team of about 12 former special operations guys, uh, that you had the capability to put doing this. We went to the UAE government and asked for some help, uh,

because at that time we identified there was other people besides Aziz and his family. One of our teammates heard about 3,500 Afghan orphans and said, if we're going to go get Aziz and his family, we've got to get these kids as well. And so that's when we decided we're going to get as many Americans, interpreters, their families, persecuted Christians, women that are vulnerable, and children as possible. And we went to the UAE. They gave us two C-17 planes, a place to set up our

our operation center and humanitarian center to use. And so we went into Afghanistan and by the permission of the military, got on HK airport, the Kabul airport. And we went outside the wire and started getting people. The first day we got Aziz and his family and about 180 people. The second day we got 800 people. And then at that point it became a blur because we knew every minute counted. And at the end of 10 days, we ended up getting 12,000 people in,

When the military left, we knew we had to stay. So we stayed and worked getting people out of remote locations. We even went to myself and one other active duty Marine went to a neighboring country and crossed the border every day for 10 days across the river and built routes to get people out.

By the end of it all, and at this point, we're moving people right now. We've got recently in the last 45 days, got 80 Americans out. But by the way, there's still Americans there, regardless of what the media says. And we're getting 200 girls out right now. So right now, we're about 17,000 people that we got out. And we're documenting it all. It's going to be another book with Thomas Nelson that will come out in October called Saving Aziz. Fantastic. Yeah.

It started with saving Aziz. Yeah. Well, God bless you and all the men and women who have contributed to that effort and risk their own personal safety and put a lot of resources and time and lives on the line to do that and to serve these people who really we owe such a debt of gratitude to.

Um, again, Chad Robichaud and the book that we're talking about among all the things he does fight for us, win back the marriage God intends for you. He's also working with this group, co-founded this group, save our allies to get folks out of Afghanistan and, um, mighty Oaks, which serves, um, military families and people in need who are struggling with any number of things. Um, Chad, tell us the best way to point folks to the mighty Oaks, uh, resources before we let you go. Yes. Mighty Oaks programs.org. If you're a veteran, uh,

active duty service member, first responder or spouse. We have one week intensive programs followed by aftercare. All that's free, including travel. While it's free to us, it's not free to them. So if you want to support there, it's a 501c3 nonprofit. You could support there as well for those because we're talking specifically about marriage. Those who come through our original program, we have a partnership with Family Life afterwards and

Part of our aftercare is to get good marriage care for those couples. And then we have several books besides this one that are resources to our veterans. We've given away about 150,000 copies of our books to our troops. And so you can find more books on the website, MightyOaksPrograms.org, and how to get plugged into any programs there.

Well, Chad, you are such a shining example of God's redemptive power, how people can feel that life is completely worthless and to bottom out the way that you did and now to be recovered and to share that love and that encouragement, inspiration with others. Great luck with the book. We wish you all the best with that and continued success with Mighty Oaks and Save Our Allies. You are an inspiration, Chad. It's been great to have you on Live in the Dream. Thanks so much, Jen. Thank you.

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