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April 22, 2021 2:00 am
Matt and Sarah Hammitt describe the many risk factors facing their marriage due to his musical career as the lead singer of the band Sanctus Real. Sarah persisted in her desire to resolve their issues and prioritize the marriage, but Matt found it easier to pour himself into his traveling musical career and avoid the conflict.
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Matt and Sarah Hammett have been married for almost 2 decades now and like every couple they still have conflict we have an amazing marriage but when we hit conflict. It's terrible and it's toxic and in earlier days I would see the first 12 years. It was probably 10 days, and months was toxic conflict.
This is family life today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson and Bob Lapine can find us on why the family like today.com having conflict in marriage does not mean your marriage is bad door there's something wrong. It means you need to learn how to resolve conflict what the Bible says about that will talk with Matt and Sarah Hammett about them today. Stay with us and welcome to family life today.
Thanks for joining us. I don't know how many grocers realize this, but Dave and I have something in common, but it was a lot of the good, but I don't know what we were both in high school in in bands where you're in a band of high school. Yeah, I was in the daydreamers that I was having dollars of the four night for me a minute. They are the coolest. I was in Harbin was called ambrosia until there was a and then we have the pull off of that right so we were ambrosia music like the food of the gods because that's what ambrosia is the food of the gods and then we pivoted and we became flat River Junction during the country running your agenda was our band and then we started doing covers of 50s and 60s, and we became the echoes I wanted us to be the original artists because I wanted to put out a cover record by the original artists have have people think you know what was the original art. When we were anyway you you get how you are a guess and the lead singer. I was the lead singer in the front man and played guitar occasionally, but sometimes just went for Mick Jagger on the thing and just was there with my microphone and I confess that Dave is three years older than me and so his band played at my middle school board in her life that might've been the highlight of our right there telling you that he is the hottest, coolest guy in my life think I haven't actually Artie knew it the first time that I'm to put on the jacket. My mom was like our manager, whatever you know and the ugly guys were whenever they wanted, but I had a Nehru jacket I wanted and they with a high collar and my mom was like no you're not getting those will be out of style in years. So I guess we wanted to be rock stars just say we never work right and we have a real rock star right. It wasn't just a dream. It's reality.
A Grammy nominated rock in our Dove award.
Moody hands and asked him happy. His wife is here that we have that evidence Sarah in the studio today welcome. Thank you.
Thank you. Glad to hear it. If you don't know.
We do know St. Israel Toledo Ohio. Yeah, you know, in our from Findlay, Ohio.
So think this realize was a band we knew back in the you know the mid-90s when you guys started in yeah you are like from Ohio so we were proud of that. But let me just give you proper introduction 20 years leading Sanctus real yeah 20 years is good good good 20 years now your marriage if you have four kids living in Nashville still writing songs and music still touring yeah and I wrote a book called lead me, and we should mention that the two of you speak at our weekend to remember marriage getaways and were glad to have you guys as part of that team, that's awesome. Before that, the more things you know, I didn't realize until I read the book, which by the way, great book. It's income now I realize and it's very real and authentic.
Thank you and how you started sort of early in the band days on the road and it was interesting to read Lemanski. This is a lifestyle. Being a rock star all that it's you know that Bob and I dream of is exactly ambrosia. I will tell you it is pretty good feeling to have anybody and then sing your song. You know then you have hundreds of people or thousands of people that makes you feel like the thing that you created that God put in your heart you know that he created through you that you got to sing meant something to somebody and so that that part of it really is exciting. It's fun to perform with the band but those behind-the-scenes moments. You know when you're not on stage and not sing a song. The writing the songs come a lot of sacrifice and some very difficult trials of just what life on the road is really like, especially in your marriage. Let me ask you, Sarah. What's it like to be married to the rock star in the beginning we were just kids and we were having fun and it was fun to travel and I went on the road with him for 20 years full-time for five years and it was fun.
We had a great adventure together and I think I put all of my dreams on hold in just chased his with hands so it was fine it was difficult getting married and getting straight on the road because we have a normal marriage we had done. You living in Canada sleeping in a van time.
It was hot and one of the things I love about your book is even a dog but those days you're very honest, we love honesty and your so real that I mean it was pretty cool. Not for you but to read about fights, conflicts, even intense on you know you're walking off the stage and you guys are yelling at each other talk about that real life whether rockstar or not, but how'd you manage that they it was difficult because we would just idly go from being on stage performing to the office on the reality of like you know my wife has needs is not just about me being on the road and performing it's about me doing life with my wife and I have to find a way to learn how to not just focus on my career behind my focus on this new marriage that God's given me in at times to be totally honest and agree about the books course that I didn't know how I'd wasn't focused all the time on this. It is a story in the book where you know I'm just like off-line around. Sarah's been working merchandise all day for pretty much free, admit five bucks or something. Whatever he could afford to give her the time and you know I come by holding up a 5X was nothing yet. I was just it was fine. Part of the team right and so you know, but I come by here and I have a let's have like a coffee in my hand and should be like, well, did you bring me one thing to me is easy to wait you know who I am. So it was hard for me definitely try to like try pull my head out of the career dream and then pull it into this marriage will straight from your mom's house to my house meaning like you have any transition time. It was straight from there.
We were young we are so young that were 19 married women 21 and I think yeah you just figuring it out, but fighting on the road was complicated. I'm not one to really hide how I feel and sell if I needed to say hey selfish and you're not thinking about me.
I think to it was hard for him because he didn't conflict.
That way, that wasn't the way his family did it.
They sorted hidden or brush on the rug and let it go like I can't live with his wage. I need to feel known and loved.
Here it is now, let's talk about it, but for him. He went to escape from it and it would just escalate and it would just explode.
Yes, I will move from a bedroom on mom's house to the bucket seat, in a van that are shared with the woman who you know was conflict as part of life. Before that, for me, all conflict is bad and simply couldn't finally imagine even intimacy. There's an intimacy either because there's nowhere. Dave speaks around the pastor and so there was a night that my car broke down. I couldn't get to this big fundraiser. He was speaking at. I finally got there after I had walked a mile and I was on Monday.
Macy's is easy and nice. The reason the car broke down was my fault he thinks the car by putting a C clamp on this very important part of vice grip honeycomb was elevated up to world really was. Sorry, I got to the event late and Dave frustrated because I wasn't there, and as I walked in, disheveled, angry, upset because he wasn't taking care of me and I felt like the world was all about him. This woman came up to me she sent you.
Dave Wilson's wife and I said yeah I am she said it must be something to be married to him. Oh yeah hello it is people will come up to me and say beautiful longer has enveloped them for you and I'm like a tear like this song came out of my hearts crying even after the song. It still hurts cry like I think everyone thought it was a magic wand and I was like now it came after a heated fight where he still felt misunderstood. These words were awesome but it was like I needed it to be reality the enemy might sound and fix everything now offering to do is delete yes yes the song lead me exactly this song happened 15 years into your time on the road with Sanctus real, this was a long process of frustration and feeling alienated and feeling abandoned and be at home taking care of kids and having to take somebody the emergency room while your husband's wrote all of that stuff. I mean I can't even remember I was pregnant for Bellin.
We have a son is really sick and you will read about that in the book, but I pregnant for Bellin. I think I'm like eight months pregnant.
There's a tornado coming. He's on the road.
I'm down in the basement of my two other kids pregnant with this sick baby that could come any minute tornado comes by floods the basement wall and in it and I'm just like what I have no young that's gone he's not there and it was time after time, our pipes would break and it just it was years and years and years of feeling that loneliness of doing it myself.
And then when he would come home. He was tired and I think you know when you do what he does. Sometimes there's veils of your eyes that you can't see things in a certain way. He couldn't understand any couldn't connect with me and what I needed and I think a lot of that had to do with the position we were living two different lives really, you know I'm job at a church and it's like a remix food for so they cannot meet its hardware and I don't think I got when you just go your full yeah I like so there's a lot of room for the work. Now granted, we were in all a lot. All those years driving bans literally through the night ourselves, doubting our own gear setting up stages meeting and greeting so was like I was working very hard, but there also a lot of reward with Sarah was at home working very hard for very little to no reward. And so I'm walking the door thinking you to just rest at home and I walk into a pile of laundry and all you got was going on. He was happened you know the house is blown up. I just didn't have that empathy to walk in the door and say what do you need from me.
How can I give a right answer. I'm think I'm the walk and pop on the college were just going to be marital bliss. She's like now the diapers at your chest it out the door. Your turn.
It's like you have that moment where you're like this is what I imagine dry and it's totally selfish were selfish as people and so getting to a place where I could see my selfishness and learn how to put her first without her having to be her wounds to show me that of course he says that's a lifelong process but it had to start somewhere, and I think that lead me was the response to one of those moments where I first was able to say how do I take my first real major steps you had not arrived when you wrote believe me you were at the beginning of what has been an ongoing journey to try to embody what that song is all about the journey to try really try my best to own up to the reality of who I am versus who I want to tell it a lot of ways it really is similar to a pastor's life yeah totally's public or you as we work with Detroit Lions for 33 seasons as their chaplain is really similar to a pro athletes life. Your as an athlete. Your life is public. The public loves you will not Detroit, but the places that I can remember coming home from road games with the Lions feel exactly that.
I walk in the inner again. I'm only gone the weekend but I meant to say things met with extension people take care of you advised catering to you on the plane in the hotel and the stadium you get on the plane to come home but I walk in the house when you said that my thigh felt something and when she's angry that I'm gone.
And all these things are going on and is also sometimes handed me a baby. I met my life is important.
Everything you've got here. I provided because all those people think I'm something that you don't appreciate me so I know Matt you I'm guessing you felt me things I did, but I'd love to hear Sarah yes your you know at home, dealing with this yeah how to do it on. I mean, I'm kind of sassy and I'm not going to hide who I am.
I have always said to Mathew I don't want walk through life with you.
I'm sorry to settle for that.
I want to dance like I want to feel cohesive and I don't feel cohesive I feel the opposite. I'm very stubborn and I persevere and I will push and push to get to a place of feeling like were dancing and you know I think that it sounds like you are pushing for quite a while without him hearing yes how did you get into here. Well I think it's only him to be honest, I don't think it's the way I have said it because I've tried it every which way I try it nice.
I tried aggressive.
I try and you know differently how many women can relate yes K knowing every time it was not understand, and so I think for me that day. He wrote that song and we did find a level of understanding.
I feel like it was just something that God listed and gave him, and I remember signing. I was thinking back like I used to cry and cry and cry and say why you give me this hard marriage like it's so difficult like you have to use this if you're going to go through all this pain. Please use it. I'm not leaving him so unity with that I would just be something because outside of conflict. We have an amazing marriage but when we hit conflict.
It's terrible and it's toxic and in earlier days, I would say the first 12 years. It was probably 10 days, and months was toxic conflict, which were probably the days he was saying he was on the road and we may be on the phone and it wasn't feeling and now I think slowly course we still have moments where we get stuck and we say the things we don't. We wish we would've never said it still is a 40-year-old after we've walked it all but it becomes further and farther between. And we hang onto that. So it comes back to you… It sounds like really got a hold of your heart. Yeah, I think it's it's the willingness to step outside of your own reality and embrace your spouse's reality is your own. And that's a really difficult thing to do, but I think that's what ultimately were called to do for spouse right for the lid on our lives for our wives, and I think part of being learning to be a man is actually being willing to not only is it denying yourself means also denying your own reality in a way because we all see things differently will want to hold onto the way we see conflict how it should be resolved how we should communicate how you should want to dance through life. But what if I'm not the kind of dancer she wants you know it's like she accept me that way or can I say. Her reality of how she wants me to dance how she wants me to communicate how she desires for me to mend her wounds and conflict, even when I don't understand completely why she's her when she's hurt or how she responds to me.
Can I embrace that reality is my own because I love her reality and who she is more than I love myself talk about the first time you saw her so she's describing what she wants. I'm thinking bro, you should assume that you saw the first time you saw her so yeah so you have the for very first time I saw Sarah. It was at this festival we were on a new up-and-coming band and become literally in the day and that night, third is on stage doing the headlining set and the lights are shining out of the audience and I see this girl in bare feet and overalls just dance and smile and I literally thought to myself like I need to add my life. Mrs. carefully carefree woman in it and I always think you like.
I was always cut is up tie people pleaser I gravitate towards kind of shame. And like in a no go inward with my feelings and and she just like all out there. You know I like men. That's amazing.
That is, I want to let go.
I love how carefree should for you Mary but then after that Mary should come in the bed like Blackfeet. You know like being outside and rub them all my love, you know, like a little OCD's tried to be loving you and she axes that she is funny.
I will give you in this one she's to chew gum going there to job and actually take it nightstick on the bed frame that's too far. Three and so yeah it is so funny because that when you see that thing you like. That's what I need in my life. Is that really what you want it all and it's like sometimes it's not what you want is what you need enough course sticking gum on you know all the things that I do you know those things. Of course overtime. We grow up we change and and my thing is much cleaner and saying that if you absolutely are better, but it is interesting because still it's like we said, I do this thing.
Do we really say I do do we what we said do do we keep doing it. Yeah so I will do. But this is so true for all of us. We see things I saw things in Maryam that are different than me, that I thought this will complement me. This will balance I'm I was thinking a cognitively I was thinking that's missing that will complete me and then you you Mary and all of a sudden put you appreciated in small doses.
Is there all the time and now it's like I liked a little of that but I don't know that I wanted all the time and with full force like it's coming right now. I think a lot of couples when they face that they go what what'd I miss her what I thought we were going to have this and now it's what what was attractive was now annoying and were surprised by the yeah so given the way conflict because happen for you guys when you're speaking a week and remember marriage get away and you're talking about how to resolve conflict in your marriage.
Are you speaking I'm going all you need to do this to you every time this morning. This morning this morning at the end I did some repenting on the way here days or so for us it's so funny because we all jolted we can remember that every couple always seems to have that like written for this was to speed read for the get there but you know you can take that unit decadence.
It is says it's amazing that we get to go in at night. I would say this about, we can remember as well and being here today at how amazing is it that we get to take this pain that we have in our lives and that God gives it purpose. It's incredible. And every time is big we can remember especially on conflict is my favorite one. We the we fight to help because I get the opportunity to not only share that you're not alone. We fight to the show are scars but also give those practical little things that were learning along the way that have helped us so much that how did you get to the point is every couples has to get there where you actually love those things that drove you crazy. It is funny because those things after almost 19 years of marriage know those things.
I did look at the other day and I said you know what is so interesting because there are some of those things about her carefree nest that just like they beat even if they drive you crazy. They become home. You know it's like the type thing that time does it's like it's kind of endearing that it drives you crazy not like it first was really endearing just romantically. Nothing negative and thousands like all negative and now at the phase where it's home to me and I would want anything else and but we had to push the massively hard times to get to that place where it feels like home because I we got to a place where we felt like we might not push you towards feeling the other among those moments right, we think, do we want to keep pushing. Can we keep climbing. Do we give up to throne the doll and I think like the beauty that I see now II do think now that feeling does that deep feeling of what I put my head in her neck and I smell her hair or just in like that. That's is the one person in my life that could give me that sense of just being my own mother where we are and I think man what would I do without that.
What if I wouldn't push through what if there were moments I could never imagine feeling that beauty ever again and now it's like because of those moments when I thought I'd never feel it again feeling it again is me, the more powerful even today, though I'm still struggling as a man to let go of my own reality and desire of how I want her to be her to speak to me her to have conflict with me. It's like how the way I think things should go. We still battle those things. And every day I still do make a decision am I going to be willing to live my own comforts my own realities up my own ideals down to embrace you know what it is that she needs for me and the server that I had tell you here and you describe home, which by the way, is a song lyric when you said that you know we we want to throw away the crazy but it's home made me think of the couple's listening right now are ready give up. Don't give up just hearing what you described me and you can feel and you can read it in your book. The pain in the struggle and the work you've gone through it didn't happen in the day year was years, maybe decades, and now you can look and go.
I'm so glad I hold on. I literally thought of my mom and dad who quit I'm him 60 only say hello but over 60 and still feel that XMI so I wish mom dad would've fought for home because my home broke and that's why have a passion to help homes and family life is that's what we will do give hope and help, but I just want to say that couple don't quit. I know it's hard I know right now it's so dark is you just want to walk out.
Don't walk out there is a child like me hope and mom and dad make it you can make it. Jesus can resurrect a dead marriage. You just heard their story years as the next one. Hang. This is a book what you've written is a book that will encourage couples so good you can persevere.
Hang in there work through it press him. We get copies of matchbook in our family like today resource Center. It's called lead me and I will encourage listeners get a copy of this book go to family life today.com to order a copy for yourself may be a couple copies so you can share it with other people, you know, again, the book is called lead me it's a compelling story of their life, their marriage order from us@familylifetoday.com or call one 800 FL today to get a copy again. The phone number one 803 586-329-1800 F as in family L as in life, and then the word today and I'll just say we would encourage every couple to get together with other couples and spend some time talking about your marriage. Don't try to do this on your own but have a team approach to building a strong marriage. We got resources David and you guys have got the vertical marriage video series. We got the love like you mean it video series. The art of marriage video series.
These are tools designed to help promote conversation between you and other couples to help strengthen your marriage and help you work through the issues that inevitably come up in a marriage she can find out more about the art of marriage video series. The vertical marriage video series. The love like you mean that series go to our website family like to.com to find information about resources we have available to help you strengthen your marriage in community and I hope you can join us again tomorrow will continue our conversation with Matt and Sarah Hammett talking about the realities of their marriage. Some of the challenges they face them how God has met them in the midst of those challenges. You can tune in for that. We might even get met to Carson song for us tomorrow so you can join us think our engineer today. Keith Lynch got some extra help this week from Bruce Goff at our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our host Steven and Wilson on Bob being Sue back next time for another edition of family life, family life to the production of family life of Little Rock, Arkansas accruing ministry help for today hope for tomorrow