You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender. This week, Dan

concludes our series about the marriage quadrants by reflecting on core categories that he

sees in strong, vibrant marriages. The presence of desire, conflict that is named and engaged

well, the growth of curiosity, and commitment and care that grow deeper and deeper over time.

Dan is inviting couples to live for so much more than a nice, pleasant marriage. This is about

a kingdom of God marriage. Remember that for a

visual aid as you listen to Dan discussing these categories, look for this episode on our blog at

the Allander Center.org. Well, as we've gone through the quadrants, with some of the heuristic

implications for what

you're going to encounter with regard to children, with regard to the way that one engages

economics, life of work, ministry, etc. What I want to do in ending is to reprise some of the core assumptions that I make about the nature of a good

marriage. What does a good marriage look like? Why is quadrant one not a good marriage? Quadrant two

is not a good marriage? Quadrant three, quadrant four. And somebody said, you know, is there

kind of like, if you take the crossing of the X and Y axis,

is the best marriage the one that's literally at the crossings of both the X and Y axis?

And my argument is, yeah, if you have to use that, but let me put it this way.

Really, if I just drew a circle on my diagram, and if that is, that's, that's,

Alice's rabbit hole, that once you go down that, you don't, you know, you're committed to affiliation, but also

individuation, committed to intimacy, but also impact. You're committed to both having that kind of

mutuality. Well, once you go through that rabbit hole, where it takes you is nowhere on that

two-dimensional piece of paper. What it takes you is nowhere on that two-dimensional piece of paper.

What it takes you to is the complexity, diversity, wildness of what really a lovely

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