Empty nest marriage tune up and a bucket list band E147

Rick Denton (00:00)
This week on the loud, quiet, empty nest marriage tune up and a bucket list band.

Clancy Denton (00:05)
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of The Loud Quiet. This weekend was a weekend for us and

Rick Denton (00:14)
Which sounds a lot more selfish than it is.

Clancy Denton (00:16)
But

and I guess the empty nest is kind of selfish anyways, but this really was a weekend that was dedicated to us, our relationship the entire weekend.

Rick Denton (00:31)
I like that you're saying that because there's so many times that it is, Hey, let's go do something with the kids or do something with but this really was focusing on growing us and also us enjoying.

Clancy Denton (00:41)
Yeah, and it wasn't like we took a trip or we did something like that. We went to a marriage conference. Yes. Which some people out there are probably like, Not what I was expecting.

Rick Denton (00:53)
Yeah.

I was expecting, you know, a a a pedicure day, a spa day.

Clancy Denton (01:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rick Denton (01:04)
It was it you know, when it when we first became aware of it, it's something that our church puts on every year. It w it was almost a yeah, okay, I guess we should

Clancy Denton (01:15)
Yeah. When we saw it we were like, we have nothing else that weekend. Might as well. We'll go. We didn't go last year because we had something. We went the year before and it was good. We were kinda like, we're here. We'll go.

Rick Denton (01:32)
nothing else going on. Which is such not the right attitude towards developing our marriage and our relationship. And I know that I was going into this weekend absolutely with this mindset of, all right, yeah, we'll go. Maybe we'll hear some and maybe we'll see some people or and it was this sort of, yeah, we don't really and this is going to sound so dangerous, but I didn't feel like we quote needed the weekend.

Clancy Denton (02:00)
And if anyone from our church is listening, we so appreciate that our church puts this on and the hard work that goes to it into it. It is always a great event.

Rick Denton (02:10)
yeah. This is more about like this is not an indictment on the the event. This is an indictment on my attitude going into it. And a lot of it is almost what we learned in it, so much of the attitude was informed by I and and we to some degree were focused on other things than us. We were focused on the book launch celebration. We were focused on

How do we plan getting Teagan back? How do we plan the next vacation? How do we heck go to World Cup matches? Like all the stuff that we talked about being kind of busy last week when we were talking about summer, all of that fed into this lack of I don't want to say awareness, but lack of focus on working on us, the married couple in the empty nest.

Clancy Denton (03:02)
We even said after the Friday night session, you know, we really didn't talk about it much on the way home. And you and I were both kind of like, well, you know, we feel like our marriage is really in a good place. And not to sound like, ooh, yes, we're doing great. We didn't need the stuff that they talked about, which

Rick Denton (03:31)
I think though that's what was in subconscious our heads of which we got.

Clancy Denton (03:34)
I know. Is this

Yeah. Which is d dangerous because there have been times that we have gone to these marriage retreats and thank goodness we did because we definitely needed it the time.

Rick Denton (03:53)
We've talked about how there was a one specific trip that I think it's overstating it to say it saved our marriage, but we don't know because there's no alternate reality. We don't talk a lot about how some of these retreats, again, whether it's saved, I don't know what the alternate reality is, but it helped us address serious fundamental issues in our marriage at that time that we weren't feeling existed now at this time. I I also think that there's a smugness.

that comes now not every emptiness couple has been married for decades, but many emptiness couples have been married for decades. And we're one of those. And I think there's a a a smugness. And I I I'm purposely using that word that comes with we've got experience. We can solve this. We we got this. we know what they'll be talking about.

Clancy Denton (04:45)
And I think the information was very good. And I think there were things that came out of it that, yes, were very good. And I think that it's great for every couple, no matter what stage of marriage you are in. There were people there that had been married six months. There were people there that had been married sixty years. It just shows you that

It doesn't matter what stage you're in or how you feel your marriage is going, just being in that room, you're gonna get information that you may not think that you need at that time, but just hearing it, you will get some nugget that you will need. Maybe not right then, but

It will sit there and it may come out in an the next week, the next month, the next year.

Rick Denton (05:47)
And that's what sleeping on it, mm-hmm, and not consciously sleeping on it, but when I did my quiet time, Bible study time in the Saturday morning, I was convicted of what I had just what I just said here, that I had gone into this.

an event that is designed to help improve the most important relationship on this earth that I and the thus we have, and I was being somewhat glib or flippant about it. And that was I had the wrong mentality. And I was convicted of it. And I changed my mentality that morning. And I thought it was interesting when we talked that morning on the way there that you said something very similar.

Clancy Denton (06:35)
Uh-huh. I I journal in the morning and I said, you know, please I want to get something out of this morning. Again, not that I didn't get anything out of Friday night. And I will say, they had my two favorite candies because they do a whole sweets bar and they had a huge charcuterie set up. And they had hot tamales and chocolate covered raisins. And those are my two favorites that I never buy. And

Those were two my favor. Yeah. But I did. I I actually journaled, you know, I'm just you know, praying that I will hear something today that hits me in a way that I didn't get hit last night. And for sure we did.

Rick Denton (07:25)
And it is amazing how that proves that the content can be spectacular in anything you're doing. This could be a marriage conference, this could be business, that could this could be any conversation. But if your mentality is one of, and I got this, I don't need this, you're going to miss it. Yeah. And I missed it initially. We missed it initially. Thankfully, we were able to think back.

Back on Friday night and bring some of those lessons forward and everything that we heard on Saturday was incredibly valuable. And again, like love languages. How many times have we heard love languages? And yet the way it was described and expanded upon opened yours and my eyes to

Ways that even today we can improve how we love on each other. And we started to have those conversations.

Clancy Denton (08:23)
Anyone who got married or dated in I don't even know when that book came out, nine

Rick Denton (08:32)
It felt very nighty for heyday, but then again that's when it was most intense to us 'cause we were dating and

Clancy Denton (08:37)
you know, probably was gifted that book or has seen that book. You know, and so yes, we have read The Love Languages. I actually we were on another podcast and a question was asked to us what is a book that in your life that has, you know, changed her perspective on things. And I actually chose that book because it really did show how

people love each other and how you receive love. It it really, you know, does show that

Rick Denton (09:16)
And it gives you a framework to communicate that to the person that you are loving, especially because your natural instinct may be to love in the way that you want to be loved. And that may not be the way that you want to be loved. If you don't know this book, we'll put a link in the show notes so that you can get it. And if you don't have it already, but th th that'll give you a path to get there quickly.

Clancy Denton (09:37)
And now they've even expanded on it to include it's called dialects. And it even goes further into each of the love languages and divides it out into specific areas. And so yeah, it was just so interesting. And so now you and I want to go take this deeper quiz. And if you don't know, your love languages change because when we were first

dating and married. Mine was gifts. I loved getting gifts. Now I don't love getting gifts. I love giving gifts. I love giving gifts, but I don't love getting gifts. I just buy it from myself now. So

Rick Denton (10:23)
So yours so fluffling which

Clancy Denton (10:26)
Yes. Well, I love giving gifts to myself.

Rick Denton (10:30)
That's nice. And the transparency comes out today.

Clancy Denton (10:35)
But I love giving gifts. But it changes. Right. And and they and I'm glad they brought that up yesterday because she said, you know, you do need to take it every few years because they can change at whatever stage of life you're in. And

Rick Denton (10:52)
It changes and this refinement that we were being made aware of. And I think that actually, you know what? I'm I'm almost committing to this live here that we'll take the test and then bring our results back to and we'll do an episode and share what what that is for us and what we've learned from it. One of the examples that they had up there was words of affirmation, which we've we've heard and I know that's one of mine, but the dialects were slightly different. And I saw it, it was like, yes.

Because and I may get it slightly wrong, but there was affirming words, compliments, and encouragement. And when I looked at that, I was like, exactly. I don't need somebody to say, you got this, add a boy.

Clancy Denton (11:36)
But see, but that's what they had to define what encouragement meant because to me, encouragement is not necessarily just those kind of words.

Rick Denton (11:46)
It

exactly. They being the book could put any sort of label on it, but once you see it crystallized and divided out, if you would had had started to say, Rick, you got this, you know, you're gonna achieve this or those kind of things, that does nothing for me. But you would be thinking, yeah, words of information I'm doing it. And so this dialect aspect of it was really I open.

Clancy Denton (12:06)
Yeah.

It it was very interesting. And I and what I need to do is look and see if the book now goes into all of that new well no, because we just came yeah, because we just came off of this. But yeah, I it was fascinating and to the point that, you know, I want Tanner and Addison to do this deeper quiz just to see because I think it would be interesting.

for them to see what their love languages are and you know it would give them a head start learning these other aspects of it. And you know, you and I were sitting there and it's true, you can see what your kids love languages are throughout the years. You know, you and I were like, yeah, that's Teagan. Yeah, that's Teagan. So but yeah, that that yeah talk right there was just, you know

If that would have been the only thing we went to Saturday morning, I would've been like, Great. That that would have

Rick Denton (13:09)
We could have checked out and then we're that not checked out in the sense of dismissing it, but just we're done. We're move on. We did have the opportunity to hear two other breakout sessions. One was and I'm you're not gonna get the labels right, but parenting adult children and spiritual intimacy. Yeah. And the parenting adult children, it was so good to have reinforced a lot of the things that you and I have been talking about here and to get additional language, additional ideas, additional specific words.

To use with our kids, not in some sort of magic, you know, Harry Potter-esque sort of way, but it it gave me language for certain things that I want to do well as the parent of an adult kid, that now I've got better words. Even the thing that we were talking about of having a very declarative statement to your kids of, hey, we release you from any holiday expectations.

It might be felt, it might be kind of understood, it might be something that sort of navigated, but if we feel that and I I we do, being able to just say to them, Hey, whatever y'all do for your holidays, great. You are always welcome here, but you were released from any expectations. That was something specific that I took out of that.

Clancy Denton (14:26)
And I liked this was led by a couple that we have known for since our kids were all itty bitty because we were in our very first life group with them. We highly respect them. And it was very nice to hear some of the things that they were saying are things that we also believe to be in so to have that reinforcement that okay, we are

Parenting similarly to the way that they are another couple that we respect and appreciate the way that they are, you know, raising their adult children.

Rick Denton (15:09)
And they have four adult children, so they got if if you want some expedition.

Clancy Denton (15:13)
are already on the grandchildren path and so yeah that that was just nice to have that affirmation and and yes and to get some more tips along the way so

Rick Denton (15:28)
And that last one that closed out with our our pa one of the the pastors, Paul Basedon, spiritual intimacy, it's not what we thought it was going in that was gonna be about, you know, pray together as a couple. This was your life as a in a in marriage and life in general, you have the highs that you remember, you have the lows that you remember, and those are likely only five percent, five to ten percent of life. Most of life is lived in what he called the plateau.

The the the the un not I don't want to say uninteresting, but sort of just the the mundane. There it is. The mundane middle is what most of life has lived. And giving us sort of guidance on what is what is having spiritual intimacy in each of those and how do those phases actually deepen your spiritual intimacy.

Clancy Denton (16:22)
It

was almost about keeping yourself bonded together is what really and how to do that.

Rick Denton (16:33)
And it's and because a lot of people and y let's take the lows. Many couples, us included, when we have had our lows, we've talked about anguishing over making a purchase over a plastic slide for our son while we were in the midst of a significant job change. Those are lows that bonded us. And then the highs, the celebratory highs, there's it's you see a real clear line of sight to how those connect couples.

It's that mundane middle that there was a term he talked about, but it's that that incremental divergence as a couple. If you're just one degree separated as you're walking in life, well five years, ten years, suddenly you're massively separated.

Clancy Denton (17:19)
It's the two parallel lines if they

Rick Denton (17:22)
If

you're in sync with each other in that normal phase of life.

Clancy Denton (17:25)
Yeah. yeah, I was that was a good talk and we took away several things that we can be doing better in that area. And again, we got in the car and we're about to talk about something else that we did that evening. The big celebration. Yes, but but on the way home we didn't talk anything about

what we just did because we were looking up something else restaurants to go yes to go along with the evening. So when we got home and sat down to lunch, I was like, you had turned on the golf tournament. I said, Well wait a second. We just did this whole marriage retreat or conference. Shouldn't we talk about it? So

Rick Denton (18:18)
And I know the way you phrase that, yeah, I did turn that on, I had the paper out. I think you had been kind of distracted too, but it was so good of you to say, Hey, wait a second. We probably would benefit from dissecting

Clancy Denton (18:27)
Yeah.

Yeah. And so we did. We sat there for a good I'd say thirty, forty five minutes and talked about some of the things that we had learned and and and I think that's when we kinda talked about what you and I had both discovered that we had thought about that morning and and so yeah, I think it was good that we stopped down and took that time to hash out some or not hash out, we didn't

There was no

Rick Denton (19:02)
We're

out in the middle of a crisis. We're not in the middle of a challenge. I think though that if I were to say there's a risk in this because I never just say one thing, but if I were to really want one big theme to come out of this, and that is we, and then I also share this with you, the the listener and the viewer, even with decades of marriage experience, and even if things are going well, there's always the opportunity to tune it up. I take my my truck in to get its

oil changed. It doesn't need it. well it needs it but in a sense, but there's not like something fine. But it's not falling apart. Like it's not falling apart. Are you killing my analogy here?

Clancy Denton (19:37)
A lot of things.

You picked the wrong thing to use.

Rick Denton (19:48)
So we're going to reset. So when I take Teagan Subaru in, there are no major issues with it. But we take it in to replace the oil because that's important for maintenance. There wasn't a reason to bring it in other than that's maintenance. And that's something that this weekend reminded me that maintenance isn't just. It is, but it isn't just date night. It isn't just travel. It's also taking the time to learn from others.

How to make a great marriage. Or what do they say? Love each other well.

Clancy Denton (20:20)
Yeah. We take care of our bodies. We take care of our house. We take care we take care of so many things but we neglect sometimes the most important relationship that's right here.

Rick Denton (20:37)
And the neglect comes when it's kinda going, all right. And that's the highest risk moment. Now, what we didn't do is we didn't neglect our relationship with what we did Saturday night. And this was something that was pretty impulsive because we had found on it was

Clancy Denton (20:55)
You had. You came to me.

Rick Denton (20:57)
Did

yeah, no, this I I little pat on the back I had this idea. Well, there were nineteen dollar tickets for an artist that we both have enjoyed. You particularly had wanted to see them and had a very specific thing of saying you when you wanted to see them.

Clancy Denton (21:14)
Yes.

So what did we figure out in

Rick Denton (21:19)
It was January of twenty twenty four. We did an episode

Clancy Denton (21:22)
about bands that we want to see before they die. And this was this was mine. And it is air supply. And they have come to our area several times, but we have always been out of town or had a kid event. There is we have never been able to see them.

Rick Denton (21:45)
Never been able to see them and and this is it's an hour away. It wasn't even all that far away.

Clancy Denton (21:50)
So Rick said, Hey, air supply is going to be at Winstar, which is the casino in Oklahoma. And the tickets are nineteen dollars. Now they're this this arena is not big and the seats were, you know, up top. I don't care. You can still hear and they have big screens. So it was

late I I guess mid last week and I was like, Well, I don't know. Let's see. You know, what if something happens later in the week and then you're like, I don't wanna go. So on Monday of this week I said, you know what? Buy It's forty bucks. Even if we don't go, it's forty bucks. So then I was like, I am going to be so mad if I don't succeed. I mean, this has been a band that I mean, I have I mean, this is the C D that, you know

we listened to and wore out in our dating young married

Rick Denton (22:55)
We wore that out

I had a cassette of it before the C D. I still remember my dad's cassette of this Greatest Hits album.

Clancy Denton (23:04)
I have just I I I love them. I mean I every video that went on last night 'cause they'd put a video sometimes up with the song. I mean, I knew the words to every single song except for one. There was one song that I did. and the new one. Well the new one. Yeah, which they a new song and a new album coming out. And Rick and I were like, What? Y'all are in your seventies. They are seventy six and seventy seven. Yeah.

Rick Denton (23:33)
It and actually we're not gonna go into it, but that song was actually all right. Usually new songs from bands that you just wanna hear the classics, you you kinda alright, well I'll tolerate maybe I'll go to the bathroom now. No, it's actually a pretty good song.

Clancy Denton (23:36)
Yeah, the new song is good, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I it the first song, if you know Air Supply, so the first song they came out and did was Sweet Dreams. I tear I got I started crying. I mean this and and I hear my kids say when they go see their artist that they've been dying to see, you know, Teagan especially, she's like, I cried. I cried. And I was like

I can't believe I'm crying at air supply, but it just has that special place in my heart and especially because it was so special to us.

Rick Denton (24:24)
And and it was it they almost are a testament of how we've always treated our relationship that it is we've treated our relationship with deep romance and love and sweetness and silliness. There is a line in one of their famous songs that cracks us up every time because it is the most over the top line. The beating of my heart is a drum and it's lost and it's looking for a rhythm like you.

Come on. I mean And we love it and we laugh and it's it's our relationship. We're sweet and we laugh. It's us. I

Clancy Denton (24:57)
can

still remember when 'cause that song used to come on and I never really paid attention to that line because you just kinda sing it or sing what you thought it was saying. But I still remember when we pulled out like the notes and we're like, what does that line say? And then you see and you're like, my gosh, that's really what it says. And I mean

Rick Denton (25:20)
And

that's it. Like that's that that is I it the the music is sweet. The the the musical talent is definitely there.

Clancy Denton (25:30)
And they were still killing it. I mean, i i it was amazing. And they love their fans. Everyone was singing. They were encouraging everyone to sing. They're just genuine. I mean

Rick Denton (25:47)
Some stories that we didn't know. No, we haven't done deep research on the band. This is common knowledge to anybody who probably has. We didn't know how the two dudes met. Yeah. And to find how they met, what a fun little story. And they were doing some storytelling and that throughout the evening. It just made for a great show.

Clancy Denton (26:02)
It was. And

And our friends Brandy and Brian went with us. So that made it at the last minute. So that made it just even more. I mean, they just got off of a European cruise and I was like, I don't know. Y'all might be too jet lag. And they're like, no, we'll go. You know, and so yeah, they came. We ate a great restaurant in Gainesville, which we didn't know Texas. We didn't know there was great restaurants in Gainesville. And so yeah, it was it was just a fun

Rick Denton (26:11)
Last minute.

Clancy Denton (26:34)
Fun evening to round out a great weekend.

Rick Denton (26:37)
The in it it's all about this is some of the elements of say yes, 'cause this was i i semi impulsive. Now it helps when tickets are inexpensive, right? If it were a two hundred dollar ticket, we might have had a a hesitation or two there.

Clancy Denton (26:52)
That would have been interesting though, because

Rick Denton (26:55)
It was easy with nineteen.

Clancy Denton (26:56)
can

say that it just because this was such a thing for me and that's you know nostalgia is such a big part of this and there's a chapter in the book that we had just gone to see Inside Out too and we made up our own characters and what they would be which emotions emotions and

I guess nostalgia was one in the movie. I guess we talked about what our we kind of vamped on them a little bit. And and so we talk about nostalgia in the book. So if you want to read about that, you can go out and get the book at theloudquiet.com and Amazon. And so it just really was it just took me back to sitting in your apartment or, you know, it just

It warmed my heart and it just for it to coincide with the weekend that we did a marriage conference, just put a little bow on it.

Rick Denton (28:03)
I almost wanted to, you know, stand up in the middle of the room and be like, Hey, if anybody's looking for a date night idea, you may not have realized this, but And I even said, I wonder if anybody from the conference was there. It's a big enough venue that we totally could have not seen people had they been there. It was it was a sweet way to do

Clancy Denton (28:24)
There were a lot of people with canes trying to get up the stairs. 'Cause you know, they said they even said, you know, some of y'all have been with us for decades.

Rick Denton (28:35)
Established nineteen seventy-five. No. The band is essentially our age. Yeah. So yeah, so that was that was a fun weekend and capped off with with a little air supply. Hope y'all enjoyed that. Truly go out there and if if find resources to help improve your marriage, whether it's at its high, whether it's in a moment that needs its its its repair, we definitely benefited from it. And then, you know.

Clancy Denton (28:39)
I was one.

Rick Denton (29:05)
Go tap into those nostalgia moments and those nostalgia bands. I hope y'all enjoyed this week's episode of the Loud Quiet.