WE3 The Winning Team
Helping Couples Work Together To WIN At This Game Called Life!
WE3 The Winning Team
Grow Together or Drift Apart
Who knew that attending a Marriage conference could rekindle the sparks and teach old dogs new tricks about unity, transparency, and the art of growing as ONE? Join us on our latest WE3 Winning Team Podcast episode, where WE share our eye-opening experiences from the "A Weekend to Remember" marriage conference, and why it's a must for couples committed to becoming ONE or maintaining unity in their marriage.
This time around, WE peel back the layers of routine that often camouflage the beauty of intentional connection. WE're talking about the nitty-gritty of maintaining oneness, steering clear of isolation, and the power of transparent communication. It's not just about what's said out loud, but what's shared from the soul. WE share our personal stories, including the triumphs and trials that have shaped our dialogue as a couple, revealing how humility and divine guidance play pivotal roles in strengthening a marriage.
Wrapping up with a rapid-fire question session that's as revealing as it is entertaining, WE invite you to share in our dreams, chuckle at our quirks, and ponder the endless adventures that marriage has to offer. Each episode is an opportunity to explore the intricate mosaic of partnership and the continuous journey of growing together – and WE can't wait for you to join us. So tune in, engage with us, and be a part of spreading the message that investing in your marriage is one of the best decisions you'll ever make.
Host
Eugene Gatewood
- Website - https://eugenegatewood.com
- YouTube: @Original_Mentor
- Facebook: @Eugene.Gatewood
- Instagram: @Original_Mentor
-TikTok: @elgatewood
LaTanya Gatewood
- Facebook: @LaTanya.Gatewood
- Instagram: @reddingl
Podcast Music by Micah Gatewood
Welcome to episode 8.
Eugene Gatewood:8.
LaTanya Gatewood:We've been doing this 8 times. Huh, let's go. That's good. Of the Winning Team Podcast. I am LaTanya.
Eugene Gatewood:And I'm Eugene.
LaTanya Gatewood:And we're the Winning Team.
Eugene Gatewood:And we are the Winning Team, yay, yay.
LaTanya Gatewood:So listen y'all. Eugene did a thing, what?
Eugene Gatewood:did, I do.
LaTanya Gatewood:I'm about to tell the people I know, okay.
LaTanya Gatewood:So he did a thing a couple weeks ago and planned a date, really weekend. I'm not a planner At all, really weak in, I'm not a planner At all. He like hates it, but he's married to a planner who has taught him well, and so he did an amazing job and it was something that was out of the norm of what we would normally do, because a date night for us is usually let's go get something to eat, and that's about it. And maybe the movies, yeah, eat, and that's about it. And maybe the movies, yeah, and then that's about it, and I'm not saying like that's it in a bad way, but like that's usually what it consists, um, consists of.
LaTanya Gatewood:But this go around he said, nope, we're gonna do a whole weekend, and that weekend consisted of a marriage conference. And so y'all, in the 21 years that we have been married, we've never, ever, ever, ever went to a marriage conference never, um, and so, and that is usually something that I would probably say, let's go to a marriage conference, husband, and he would say maybe, or reluctantly probably wouldn't say nothing, I'd probably just go that probably be it right there, uh, but with this one he planned, uh, the entire weekend.
LaTanya Gatewood:So it was local, it was a local conference and we stayed out in Oakbrook, which isn't too far from us, and and it was just an amazing weekend. So it's called. It's offered through Family Life, the conference was offered through Family Life and it's called A Weekend to Remember, and y'all, it was a weekend to remember. So, good job, husband. Thank you, babe. So it wasn't just, and so we could have easily gotten back in our car and drove the 30 minutes back home, but we stayed the entire weekend. We stayed at a hotel, was at a hotel, so we stayed um the entire weekend and really made it um a weekend to remember with, um some great date nights. So after the conference, there was some nights that we went out on some dates to some really great restaurants.
Eugene Gatewood:So stay tuned for that I know I planned those two y'all he did y'all like all of it.
LaTanya Gatewood:I'm so happy and so proud of my husband um so good job, husband. So just continue that.
Eugene Gatewood:Okay, you've started it no, this is now, you know, just, but not for the whole year okay, the year huh, I did like two nights, you did you you did an amazing.
LaTanya Gatewood:You did an amazing job. You did an amazing job and so if, if, family life. Now, let me say this we do not work for family, we are not getting a commission from Family Life, none of that. But if this comes through your city, we highly highly recommend going. This is money well invested into your marriage, because marriage is an investment.
LaTanya Gatewood:You're going to probably hear us say that a few times today, but we want to just kind of give you all a recap of really what we got from from it and even being married um 21 years. This was something for me. It was, um, eye-opening to marriage, I think, even just allowing me to look at marriage differently. Uh, and not that it was a we going to this marriage conference because we need to get one another right, like we need to fix you, you need to fix me, and even when we started to tell people that we were going to this marriage conference, people started looking sad out at us like y'all good and like, yeah, we're, we're good, we're making an intentional investment into our marriage, and so, uh, we just want to go through some of the points that we think were just so powerful for the weekend for us, but highly highly recommend if this comes through your city.
Eugene Gatewood:Yes, please do, please do, do yourself a favor, let me tell you this.
LaTanya Gatewood:So let me just give you just a real like a synopsis, an overview of what it was. So there were literally 500 couples there, y'all 500. So that meant a thousand people more than a thousand, more than a thousand, so right, so it's probably over 500 couples that were in this room, and so when we heard that, I know for me, when I heard that, I was like how really impactful is this gonna be with 500 people in the room?
LaTanya Gatewood:listen, a thousand people, a thousand people, right with a thousand people in the room. And when I tell you there were people who were like engaged to people who have been married for like two months, to people who have been married for 54 years, yeah, that were in that room. So this is not just for, like, newlyweds, because they got to figure this all out. Uh, no, y'all, because, again, we've been married 21 years and we walked away from there so enriched, so much. I think just better, because we it just gave us another way to look at marriage.
Eugene Gatewood:So so, in knowing all of this and you did the planning for all of this, like what prompted you to want to say, let's do this weekend to remember that's a good question and honestly I'm gonna say, you know, shout out to their marketing team, because I saw it first on social media and you know I go past stuff on social media and sponsorships all the time but when I saw this I was like huh, it's like, what is this? And so the beautiful part I even even about the weekend is that I know I didn't know what to expect and so we didn't know what to expect coming in. But I think we went into the weekend with a spirit of expectation, like you know what, we're going to work on this, because, funny how you said everybody was wondering you know, was something going on in our marriage? Whenever we say when you told them that that's what we were doing? But one of the first things that they said was is that maintenance is better than repair?
Eugene Gatewood:That was so good and so that statement Good, I'm like yes, because that's exactly the reason why I felt like we were going. And when you think about your, your car, you know what happens if you don't do the standard preventative maintenance on your car, the standard preventative maintenance on your house. But let's just stick to the car. If you don't get your oil changed in your car, eventually the car is not going to run well. If you don't rotate your tires or get new tires, if you don't change the transmission fluid, if you don't change all of the fluids and spark plugs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, the standard maintenance in your car, eventually that car is going to break down. And if the car breaks down and you don't have, you know well, I'll just stick with the warranty If you don't not warranty. But if you don't, if you didn't do the preventative maintenance, and the car breaks down, it's going to cost you so much more to repair.
Eugene Gatewood:So for me, what I was thinking about is you know what this could be a good thing, because we're getting, you know, we pray and thank God for the people who come to us and that we pour out to. But sometimes you got to sit and be poured back into, and so I felt like it was a good opportunity for us to not just based on what we read and you know how we talk to one another and you know other couples that we're with. This was an opportunity for us to get away, to unplug and to just sit and be ministered to absolutely and so I really, I really enjoyed it.
Eugene Gatewood:And another thing is that you know, I'm I'm not a paper person, and so I have this workbook in front of me, but I I kind of started to complain about this workbook when we first got there before we started because I don't like to write.
LaTanya Gatewood:I don't like to write, I want electronic, I want to type it. I'm, like you, already going into the weekend. Now. It's not gonna be a reason to remember if you're going in like this. So I did.
Eugene Gatewood:I had to check myself and say, eugene, be present and and and and fully engage in the weekend. So I put my phone on, do not disturb. And so you know. You know, scriptures tell us that faith without works is dead. So it'll work if you work it. Yeah, and so you had to put in the work, and so it was a phenomenal opportunity for us to come together, to be fully engaged and, um, I really sincerely enjoyed the weekend.
Eugene Gatewood:So, just to jump in a little bit, so the the weekend was really about oneness and god's goal for, and god's vision for, marriage, and his intent was really a brown, a couple being one, working together as a team. But but then you have the enemy, who is doing everything in his power to push, push us toward isolation. And so what happened is that we should, in a, a marriage, should, always be facing one another and always in tune to one another. And then he talked about how the enemy because, again, it's not your spouse, that's the key thing. We wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but you got to understand that the enemy of your marriage, just like Adam and Eve back in the garden in Eden, it wasn't Adam versus Eve, it was the enemy coming in to get in the way of them becoming one. And so the enemy wants to push you toward isolation, and so he wants you to move through life married but not together, and that was a point that was that was amazing to me, and so it talked about just initially. To start is that we long to experience oneness, and we do that by trusting one another. We overcome struggles together, we get to know one another as well as we can so that we can love one another and accept each other. As for who we are, you know she wants to know that I have her back and she has mine. I am my best self when I'm with her. That's how you want it to feel when we were with one another, that we, you know, we understand that we're unstoppable together, that we're known, but that we're loved, we're hopeful she gets me, I get her and that we're romantic and that we're intimate and we have hope because we feel like our best years are ahead of us.
Eugene Gatewood:But when you start moving toward isolation, you start having different thoughts about your relationship, and they talked about how. You start getting a feeling of hopelessness. You start thinking about that. You know, silence becomes the conversation, when you start to think about there's no intimacy and there's no sex in your marriage and and your best, you feel like your best years are behind you and then y'all never actually really resolve arguments.
Eugene Gatewood:Um, you even could feel invisible in your marriage and even really start to think about yourselves as roommates more than a married couple, and you feel stuck and you feel unloved and you feel like you're married to a stranger and and and that's where you know that you, you have moved toward isolation and that the enemy is actually winning in your marriage. And the one last thing I'll say, and I'll throw it back over to you, is that again, we're supposed to be facing one another and what are the things that the enemy does to make you turn away from your spouse? Because when you're one, you're facing each other, and I know we'll get into it later, but I know the enemy has done many, many things and he has found his way in where he makes me turn away from you, where he makes me turn away from you, and this weekend caused me to understand those moments and not even allow it to happen even for a second.
LaTanya Gatewood:Yeah, I think that that was that, that oneness and isolation. I never really thought about it in that context, I think. You know, I think when we talk about marriage or when it's talked about marriage, when others are talking about, even with us, you know, you talk about cleaving and you talk about, you know in Christian terms, that you leave your parents house and you come together as one, and I think um, in society often kind of teaches against that. You know, even in marriage, like, oh, you can still be yourself, you can still be this, you can still be um, you know you, you don't have to listen to what they have to say, you don't have to. But and so those are those distractions, are those things that I think the enemy can begin to put that wedge in between it, because we're often in the space of what is God saying about our marriage? But every day we engage in the world. Every day that's saying something different, that's giving messages that are different, and so, for me, that idea of oneness and isolation was was pretty eye-opening for me and really made me begin to think about what does that look like for us over 21 years? Um, and, and I think one of the things that they said is that, um, no, marriage is static, so, like you're going to be on some spectrum, ideally, of this oneness and isolation, um, throughout your marriage. And it's the intentionality to get you back to the oneness you know, because isolation is easy, like it's easy to drift apart, and I was even thinking about what causes that.
LaTanya Gatewood:Um, and for me, one of the analogies that came up was rhythm versus routine. And so, you know, when you think about a rhythm, when it comes to music, it's a beat, you can feel it, you know, you move with it, you're moving at the same time and it's almost like an experience. You really become one with the music, you become one with the person you might be dancing with, when you're in rhythm with one another. But then I think what happens is life happens, yeah, which then means life for me means that routine. So, especially if you have kids in the mix and I can honestly say that probably is one of the things that probably has caused some isolation, not our kid him himself, but the routine of what needed to be done for him, because he needed routine.
LaTanya Gatewood:And so that routine it becomes about the thing that you just don't think about, and so that becomes the rhythm of your marriage, because now it's like I didn't think about this. We in this routine, we wake up, we go to school, we go do this, we do this and we back at it again and so you don't feel it, you don't um, you know it, but that's all you do. You know you're not being intentional around it, you're not growing it. You just I just need to get through this, the, the routine of the day.
LaTanya Gatewood:And we say that, we say that all so often like just let me get through the routine of the day, and so we even begin to speak that you, that's the life that I think you're even giving um to your marriage. And so then, when it's before you looked up, and now the routine has gotten you drifted away from the person that you're supposed to be in rhythm with, then that becomes, you know, that becomes the issue. Think about, and I think now, even now after this um conference, I've been more intentional, or wanting to be more intentional, around our rhythm and not just doing a routine, because when we really we don't like to do routine things, when you really think about it, like Nobody likes to go to the dentist, you need to go to the dentist, because that's your dental routine. It's maintenance.
LaTanya Gatewood:No, it's maintenance. Nobody wants to go to the doctor, but if you want good health and you want, you know, to live a long life, you go to the doctor, that's the routine. Nobody likes routines, but it's, but it's the but. I think if you, if you're not, if you don't go to feeling it, going back to now, like let me get a rhythm with it, I don't think that's what I was gonna say all the way.
LaTanya Gatewood:I think I understand what you were saying but um, so yeah, so nobody likes those things. But how do you now get back to breaking so much of the routine? Now, I do think routines are important, so I don't want to take that away from it. But now, how do you feel in that routine? How do you get a rhythm, even in the routine of things, so that you are doing these check ins and are you know, you are trying to make sure that you're breaking up the monotony of what life will have for you?
Eugene Gatewood:Yeah, I agree, and I think again, I think in that you have to be known and you have to be loved Love, excuse me. And I think what happens is that in the, in the midst of the rhythms and the routines, you still have a feeling about it, you still have an emotion about it, you still have, you know, life happening to you as an individual, because I think it absolutely is OK. And I love the analogy of a dance, because sometimes you dance by yourself and that's perfectly OK. But then there's times when we are dancing together and then we still have to have a rhythm in order to be able to vibe with one another. And so what happens is that life does happen and it disrupts that rhythm and the routine. And how will you as a couple Well, let me back up how will you, as individuals, respond to that disruption and still try to do everything in your power to make sure that you maintain the rhythm even though you have a disruption?
Eugene Gatewood:I love this quote from Sydney Harris. She said almost it's in it's in our workbook Almost. No one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity, excuse me. Yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage. Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves success, great success in any field. Yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage, and I think that that's so true is because marriage works if you work it, and so when disruptions happen, we talk about for better or worse, but how will you handle the worst?
Eugene Gatewood:good things and good times in marriage absolutely and how it makes you feel like this happily ever after.
LaTanya Gatewood:But what happens when, when happy leaves, like the next day, you know, after you didn't have the ceremony, you had all of these things. What happens in the for better or worse um moments? One of the other things that I think they talked about. That was really good for me because I can probably pinpoint, even in the beginning part of our marriage. I probably had a little bit of this in me, probably still got a little bit of this in me, but it was. Did you just shake your head? I did. They talked about a me marriage. So's my, what are my expectations and my hopes and my dreams? Um, and my spouse doesn't always cooperate with with a me marriage and so, like, if we real, being real, real, like we probably operate in that space a lot you said we yeah yeah, keep going uh, y'all, he a only child, I'm a only child.
LaTanya Gatewood:We have a whole lot of me moments in this here marriage, but guess what we've done? We've learned how to get in the rhythm of these only children, because we interesting, uh, but I thought that was so interesting to know that you really do, even in your trying to be conscious of the other person.
LaTanya Gatewood:Um, that me marriage, like me, mine, that can get in the way and begin to cause some of the isolation you know that can, can happen as well, and so again, that was one of those like eye opening things for me in terms of all right, how, how does that, how does that show up and how has that caused isolation? You know, I think even even for for us, and I think you know it, probably it has at some point, and I think it it may again, as we're on this, this journey, it may come up again. But I also think now we have better tools.
Eugene Gatewood:We do and I think this, this book, this this weekend, it affirms so much that we have been doing that has caused us to be successful over 21 years.
Eugene Gatewood:But, as you said, it gave us clear language because communication is really necessary to put us on the path toward oneness, and so I believe that they gave us phenomenal illustrations and graphs and charts when we are talking about the goal of communication, and this is to build oneness, as you're sharing basically who you are, and there are five levels that they talked about in regards to communication that I absolutely loved, and these are really the levels are in that can be indicators of where you are in your relationship. And so level one they talked about because what really you want to get to a level five, which is really where you're being transparent and sharing all that you, all that you are, but level one, when you're in level one and you're communicating, you you can know that, because level one is cliches, so you're really not sharing, but you just say, hey, how was your day? Oh, my day was, you know amazing.
LaTanya Gatewood:It was blessed and highly favored.
Eugene Gatewood:That's that you're just, you're just saying cliche statements and you're not really getting to the fact, getting down to the um to being, of course, the goal of transparency level two they talked about. You just share facts. You're really just sharing what you know, and a many couples live here where you just kind of talk about the facts of your day. I went to work, I talked to my boss, my boss said this. I said this back.
Eugene Gatewood:The kids routine. You're just really focused on all of the facts in your life. But level three is when you get to opinion, when you're actually sharing what you think about all of the facts and all of the things that you're actually going through, um, whether or not you, you like it, you don't like it, um, because that's when you actually start to share your opinion. And then you get into the point of emotions, which is level four, where you're talking about how that actually made you feel so. So you can have a fact, but do you like or not like it, which is your opinion? And then how does it make you feel? And does your, does your spouse even receive what you're actually saying when you're sharing it. And then, of course, after you get done with your emotions, you move to the point of transparency, where you're sharing of who you are, and I often say I cannot remember who said this, but I just.
Eugene Gatewood:My goal is always to get the person who knows me the best to love me the most, because that's when you know that you're to the point of being transparent. Where you are. Is that I'm not. I am completely open and transparent. I'm sharing with you not only the facts of my day, how I felt about even what you said to me, how I thought about that. I'm sorry of my day, how I felt about even what you said to me, how I thought about that. I'm sorry. The opinion of how I thought about it, even how something made me feel, but then I'm sharing everything with you and then that way we, we can, we don't avoid um transparency for the fact of just trying to get along, to get along, and I want you to feel safe and I want to feel safe to be able to share in that way where have?
LaTanya Gatewood:where do you think we land in this, like what, maybe even now? Um yeah, well, what was?
Eugene Gatewood:interesting is, as I was looking at, you know this level. It's not even about now I'll talk about now in a second but I know that there was a season of our life where we lived in the fact stage and it was just about sharing what I know, and caught up in the routine of our lives, about who was going to pick him up, who was going to pick Mike up, who was going gonna, what's on your calendar for tomorrow, and then it's just like you're just talking through the the mundane of the routine yeah and you know, for us, we start to feel like, wait a minute, like this is not normal.
Eugene Gatewood:Um, we understand that there's no feeling and emotion in this, and so I thank God that we were in a space where we would do self-regulation. It's like, hey, man, let me check in, are you good? And then even there are some periods of time where you would check in with me and say, hey, are you good? I'm like, yeah, I'm good, stop asking me. But but in reality, I wasn't good. I wasn't good for, for whatever reason whether it was me being triggered, uh, because I felt like there wasn't enough intimacy in the marriage.
Eugene Gatewood:Me being triggered because I felt like our finances weren't right and you may have swiped too much on the spending, and I told you not to swipe, and you swiped anyway, and so so what I did is, as opposed to me actually sharing how I felt about it, I stonewalled and I just just didn't talk to you about it, and that most definitely didn't help our relationship. And then, of course, you like, dude, I know you're not okay, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine, cause I'm working through it in my own head, but but not being transparent enough to share with you how I think about something, how I feel about something, so that you will know exactly how I feel. And I feel horrible that that went on, and especially when you I'm like let me just get through the routine of the day and so that impacted our relationship for a very long time where we were just kind of going through the motions. But now, if I feel something, I say something. Sometimes you don't be wanting me to say all the time.
LaTanya Gatewood:I'm like all right, that's enough, like that's all I can take right now, like thank you, husband, I'm so glad that we are at a different time and space in life um, like you just gonna hit me with all of that right now.
LaTanya Gatewood:Know, and I am probably the total opposite. You know I am a verbal processor, I am a. You leave my emotions out there. There's not going to be any question how Latonya is feeling, because I'm going to say it, or, truly, my body language is going to be like speak loud and clear. And I think I've even had to, um, think over the years, even navigate some of that, because I know what I know about my husband is that he's not a confrontational person, it's not going to be any arguments, you know. So I had to really learn a different method of communicating, because if I came at him, he was gone with like, yeah, now I'm good, you know, because I probably had a, you know, a come at you spirit. I probably am in recovery, um, for that, uh.
LaTanya Gatewood:But I knew that that wasn't going to get him to talk or say anything to me. So so then I went through a season of I'm just not gonna say anything. So then that's my like shutting down. If I'm now saying what's wrong, what's wrong, you're not saying it, you know you're not saying anything, okay, fine, and I know you're not going to be confrontational with me about it. So then I'm just not going to say anything, um, and so that was. That was like a journey that we really had to, um, to work through. And we were just talking the other day like how do we get through that, and I'm just gonna say, y'all, it wasn't nothing but the Lord and like not to like over, spiritualize this or anything like that, um, but I just think if you don't be for real out in these marriage streets, you better have the Lord with you.
Eugene Gatewood:Let me give a practical side about that answer, though it was God. But you know and this is not a prideful boast of my own horn, this is actually a humility point, because I did a lot of introspection during those times. Introspection during those times, and I like in when I'm praying about what's going on. God is saying hey, do you trust me with this marriage? I'm like, yeah, I trust you. Okay. Then God is starting to talk back to me. So in the moments where I'm like praying about it I'm not praying about Lord, fix her. I'm saying God, what is it about me? Like, why does this bother me so much? What am I supposed to do about this? And then that's when he's like that's my daughter and you're treating my daughter Like I'm not okay with how you're treating my daughter, and I'm like dang okay.
Eugene Gatewood:So now conviction starts to set in. And so now I'm starting to look at myself to say what should I be doing? Like I'm looking at you because I'm mad, because I'm counting the number of days the last time we were intimate. And so God was like I thought, I thought I told you to love her unconditionally, I told you not to keep record of wrong Like, even to the point where it's like I'm like Eugene, don't be keeping a tally sheet, whether it's physically or mentally. And so God is saying that's not how I want you to look at her, like you need to deal with, with the lust that's on side of you, even if you think you know, and that's when I even discovered like wait, you can even lust after your wife. If you're not looking at her from a from the standpoint of how God is looking at her, and then using the sexual intimacy that y'all have as a way to expressing how you feel and enhancing how you feel, then you can do that.
Eugene Gatewood:The same thing in your marriage. You know you can look at and objectify your wife in a way that's not healthy, and so it was like God was revealing all of those things to me as I was praying about how our relationship was, and so that caused me to say all right, eugene, you need to check yourself and stop. You know, I think I'm shutting down because of something that she was doing, but really God was saying you need to check yourself, and so part of that would. Then my heart was softened and then I was, and before, well, all of those things were causing me to turn away from her, then that would cause me to turn back toward her. And then I had to figure out, ok, my, my communication style and how I've been watching people communicate as I grew up and what I learned about communication. That's not healthy because there are really, like some, some bad communication habits that we have. I mean, you could be a stuffer, a person that holds everything in. You can be a shouter, where you just blurt it all out.
LaTanya Gatewood:That's probably me.
Eugene Gatewood:Yeah, and you can be a person that interrupt a interrupter and I know that's me and then you can be a person that just rambles on and on and on, or you can be a person that's an arguer. And if those are your bad community or your communication styles, you know, I'm not saying that one is better than the other, but you really have to then take a, take a um, a pulse on your relationship to figure out is that working for you, is that working for for her or him, and is that working for your relationship? Because you know stress plays a part in that too. That causes you to to be triggered, um, and everything. And so I know that we're pushing, but I just want to say this one last point before we may have to go into a part two again, but the thing that you have to realize, that I think George Shaw said that I think is a phenomenal quote, because all of this really comes down to communication, your style of communication and how you communicate. He said the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it's actually taking place. That's crazy to me, because how many people are fighting and they're not getting to the root cause, like what's the issue, when the issue is really not the issue Like you're fighting about. You know the socks on the floor, but really you're just a better communicator.
Eugene Gatewood:So that when I've had some needs, wants or feelings about something and I wanted to work toward transparency, it was really about identifying who I am and communicating that to her, to Lataya, in a way, communicating that to you in a way that you would know who I am, and then you can have a communication or a conversation back with me based on how you thought about what I said, how it made you feel, and then you can also explain back to me who you are. And then that's when it was like all those light bulbs went off and we were like, oh okay, this is who is who I am, this is what I desire, this is what you desire. Now, what can we both do about that? To work together in oneness, to walk this thing out? How can two walk together except they agree?
LaTanya Gatewood:yeah, I mean, I think you you've said it all, you've summed that up, you know pretty well, and it it is, it's true, and as we, you know, we'll we may talk about this again.
Eugene Gatewood:We're gonna have to talk about this again because there's so much meat here it talks about the level of transparency, because that's really you want to get to, and so I think that in the next episode, we will really talk about you know what transparency looks like, and and what do you have to do, because in order to continue to move toward transparency, because otherwise you will you will start to drift apart, and and so I love the fact that they gave us many opportunities to check in yeah, uh, during this conference and where you had activities where you had questions, uh, where you can really sit down and talk about.
Eugene Gatewood:you know what will cause you to drift apart?
LaTanya Gatewood:Can I tell the funny? Even during the conference.
Eugene Gatewood:Sure.
LaTanya Gatewood:I think it was probably Friday night or something. It was one of the check-ins, now maybe it was something on communication and you said something. I don't even remember what the back and forth was that we had and we had to kind of stop and say, because it was something about, I think, the way that I responded to something that you said, like literally while we sitting in this conference. Oh yeah, and we didn't talk about it, we didn't say anything right at that moment.
Eugene Gatewood:But then we like readdressed it and really said you know, like in that moment I wasn't trying to disagree with you, but I was trying to say this yeah, it was something that I took offense to or something that she said, and you know I can always tell when her voice get all high pitched and stuff that she said. And you know I can always tell when her voice get all high pitched and stuff. Um, and so when her voice got high pitch, but it was her getting high pitch, but it was something that I said that triggered and caused that, and so as I'm sitting there in the conference listening to, I'm like dang I literally just did exactly what they talk about on the stage five minutes, like five minutes ago, like it was so hilarious literally apologize during the next break for what I had just done.
Eugene Gatewood:But again, that's what I mean by not allowing the enemy to turn you away from your spouse, but being humble enough even in the moment to say my bad, I did that wrong and I don't know if we would have, if we would have had that exchange and vocalizing that, like if we had not just, like, learned that you know.
LaTanya Gatewood:So so I think it we will definitely have to go deeper in um in this, because there was so many things and so much great takeaways, um, and I think a couple of the things that I took away, like, as we're wrapping up, so maybe you can throw out your one or two things that you took took away with you, I'm gonna keep on talking because we, I think, honestly, we're gonna transition, because I think that the the one or two things that we're gonna take away are the things that we're gonna talk about in this next episode, because there's we listen y'all, let me.
Eugene Gatewood:Let me just say this too we, what we just gave to y'all the conference was friday night, saturday and sunday. What we just talked to you about is the first 40 minutes of friday night. That's true.
Eugene Gatewood:We haven't even gotten to what we talked about all day on on Saturday, which was really God's model for our marriage, and so we haven't even begun to scratch the surface, and so we we're already probably almost 40 minutes into this episode, but it's as you can see we're passionate, we're excited about it, and we can't wait to come back and talk to y'all a little bit more about what God has done for us through this conference and how we just didn't want to keep it to ourselves and want to share it with you.
LaTanya Gatewood:Well, I'm going to. I'm going to. I think maybe we can end on this. We can't do our. Are we doing questions today? Oh yeah.
Eugene Gatewood:Let's do questions.
LaTanya Gatewood:So let me just end on this, because I think it sums up for me, it sums up this part of it, that marriage is hard, but it's worth it.
LaTanya Gatewood:Marriage is hard but it's worth it. That was, that was literally, that was a t-shirt that weekend, um, and I was like it's so true, it is hard. Work like we. We not gonna ever tell you that. Like you know, marriage is is easy and it's gonna make life easy because that's. And if somebody tell you that that's a lie and don't listen to them, they, they, they not operating in nobody's spirit but their own, um, or if they tell you that it's hard and it's not worth it, don't listen to them either because, that's the enemy, for sure, but it is.
LaTanya Gatewood:It's worth it. It's worth the hard work to do life together, because that's what God has intended us to do um and so that's what I think I can walk away with. Um, and it just my heart wasened, enlightened by the time we had left that weekend.
Eugene Gatewood:Amen. Well, we got so much more to share. We do. We're going to make a part two to this episode eight, and we will be sharing it very soon.
LaTanya Gatewood:Okay, you want to do my rapid fire question? Let's go Okay. What is an adventure you would love for us to do together?
Eugene Gatewood:So here's the thing. So I want to go to Africa, so bad, and in my brain I have been wanting to do an African safari. But you know, sometimes I spend a little time on TikTok a little and so I just, yeah, a little, be quiet.
Eugene Gatewood:And so the last couple days I done seen an elephant attack, a safari truck. I haven't seen like so many things happen that I'm like, oh no, bro, I think I might be passing on this safari in Africa because that all of a sudden don't seem so fun to me, no more. But I do. I really sincerely want to go and spend time. I mean, I've even looked at, you know, buying houses in Ghana, like I'm just saying. It's just something that you know. I would love to just be able to go and share and travel, and you know experience that's a good one.
LaTanya Gatewood:I would agree with that travel travel. I think we've talked about oh, we've talked about getting in a camper and driving.
Eugene Gatewood:I'm not gonna say I don't know how far I'm gonna drive. That's what I'm gonna say. I'm a ride.
LaTanya Gatewood:I ain't gonna say like a whole lot of cross country. How about?
Eugene Gatewood:we just do the train from chicago to california.
LaTanya Gatewood:California, that could.
Eugene Gatewood:Because I ain't driving no camper all the way over there by myself, because you not driving the camper.
LaTanya Gatewood:I would drive a little bit, you not driving the camper. But a cross-country adventure, yeah I like that train idea. Yeah.
Eugene Gatewood:But again, I know you're going to take the train there, but I'm positive.
LaTanya Gatewood:Oh, let me tell you what I'm not going to do. Yeah, not going to do.
Eugene Gatewood:Yeah, I'm not going to tell people how you wouldn't even drive back. That was like 30 years ago, and you made me drive back by myself.
LaTanya Gatewood:He didn't drive back by himself, he was by myself, he was with my parents.
Eugene Gatewood:Well, this has been great. It's gone a little bit longer, but we excited. Thank you all for coming and hanging out with us. Please like share, subscribe Again. Again, this may not even be, um, I know. I pray that it has blessed you, but there's so much more and so many more people out there that that needs to hear more about positive images of god's uh, ordained marriages. So please like, share, um, leave a comment, because you know these algorithms, they like those things, but anyway, but we, we appreciate y'all. Yes, thank y'all for tuning in to this episode of the winning team and we will see y'all soon. Peace. Outro Music.
