As a young pastor, Ryan thought he was ready to get married, but soon after the wedding, he had a big problem.

When I'm doing counseling, I tell people oftentimes that I had the worst beginning six months of a marriage that I know of,

and so I'm a qualified counselor for them.

And what really began to give me a 180 in my marriage and understanding my role as a husband was just the

ministry of focus on the family. Now, Pastor Ryan points his congregation to all the resources we

provide for families because we're still helping them today. Focus on the family empowers me in my

marriage because I can understand

that other people have gone through the same thing that I'm going through and I'm not alone

in the struggles that I face and my wife and I can gain hope from the stories that are shared

on air. I'm Jim Daly. Help us give families hope today. Donate and your gift will be doubled at

FocusOnthefamily.com slash gift.

And it's so funny when you first get married, you run hard. You go hard at it. You're like,

I'm all in. I want to do this. We're going to be great. And then our spouse lets us down

or drops us and they disappoint us. And suddenly we stop running quite as hard. And we're

afraid that we'll be dropped. And pretty soon you don't have either one running toward each other.

That's Anne Wilson describing a really common challenge that many husbands and wives face in the early

years of marriage. Now fortunately couples can learn how to turn back toward each other again and again.

And her husband Dave are back with us to share more of their rather remarkable marriage story and what

they've learned along the way. Thanks for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller.

John, I'm sure when your girls were little, you read some of those princess stories to

him, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, all the time.

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