Josh Hankins: [00:00:00] You know, it, it makes it sound funny that I proposed in a month, but she was on board with it like we were. This is an equal planning, uh, together. And, uh, I, I don’t know who said I love you first, but I know that I wrote it in the dust, uh, on her, one of her tables in her house. Uh, she had some dust, like an obscure spot that she didn’t clean regularly.

But I wrote it in Russian so she couldn’t read it.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Love stories fill us with joy and inspire hope for the future. And a true life romance can remind us that sometimes just one spark is all it takes to change everything.

They fell in love fast, then quietly drifted. They never dreamed God would use a podcast to bring them back together. Welcome to Unexpected Love Stories. I’m your host Don Perkowski, and our guests today are Josh and Shelly Hankins. [00:01:00] This wonderful couple are the co-hosts of the God’s Goodness Podcast, and their show is globally ranked in the top 10%.

Together. They share honest conversations about faith, marriage, emotional connections, and so many ways that God works in our everyday life. Welcome you guys. How you doing?

Josh Hankins: Good. Thank you.

Shelly Hankins: Thanks for having us.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. This is exciting. Okay, so I would love for you to take us back to the beginning, like before you met, um, were you guys, what were you doing?

What were you looking for? A relationship? Tell us how this all began.

Shelly Hankins: Do you want me to Yeah,

Josh Hankins: go ahead and kick it off.

Shelly Hankins: Well, it was, uh, 16 years ago, 17 years ago-ish. And we were both on the internet look online dating. And so we were looking for somebody. And despite that, I was still, back in the day I went to [00:02:00] bars till all hours of the night.

I was not the same person I am today. And, uh, so I was. I knew Jesus, but I wasn’t living like I did. And uh, so I was, you know, living the wildlife. And I met him on Yahoo personals of all places. And we had Yahoo. I don’t think it exists anymore, but they had this thing where you could say hello, you know, hi or whatever, but you could only do that so many times and you couldn’t talk to them unless you paid for it.

So I’m like, I guess I’ll pay for it. ’cause I really wanted to talk to him. And it was, it was like, it’s said a hundred bucks over, you know, three months. I’m like, I can do that. And then, then they charged me all at once. But it was worth it because he, here we are so

Josh Hankins: clearly a good investment. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I had, I just got outta a divorce.

I’d been out [00:03:00] for a, a, a couple of years. Um,

Shelly Hankins: you were still married?

Josh Hankins: Oh, yeah. I mean, but it was, I was separated. Okay. I was still married, but I was still, I was separated. It was divorced enough for my liking because she was gonna file for it. I, I wasn’t going to, she was just, she wasn’t getting around to it.

Um, but I refused to to pay for it because she was the one that was seeing other people. I wasn’t, I wasn’t, I wasn’t gonna pay for that. Um, and anyway, uh, I had just joined the Army and I had already gone to Bootcamping back when I started the Yahoo Personal page. And, uh, I would wink at like wave or wink at certain people.

And, and she was one of the ones that caught my interest and I did a little wave and she responded in an email. I’m like, oh, this is great. Um, and we had our first date. At a, uh, what was that? Uh, Buffalo Wild Wings. Um, but she came into my, I used to work at a ba, a Bath and body work, so when I was in the armies, in the reserves, and so I had a day job and I worked at Bath and Body, and she [00:04:00] came in No.

Bed,

Shelly Hankins: bath and Beyond.

Josh Hankins: That’s what I meant. Yeah. Bed, bath and Beyond. Thank you. I’m, I’m getting old. That’s what.

She came in to kind of like get a feel for me. And so she came in, saw me, we talked a little bit, talked about when we’d have lunch, and then I think it was the next day or next, within the two days, we had lunch together. Uh, and she was really quiet and I was quite the talker and I thought that’s what the dynamic of the relationship was gonna be.

And it, and it was not. She, she had, uh, part of her past history was she was diagnosed bipolar. And I was cool with it because, you know, she was taking medications and, you know, perfect. Well one of those medications really slowed her down. Um, like didn’t make her much of a talker. And within like two weeks of me dating her, she switched over to another medication and, um, I, she was not quiet any longer.

I, she was quite, she is who you see now. Um, but she’s [00:05:00] unmedicated now. You know, if we were to jump ahead to find out that she was misdiagnosed and. Um, you know, God works miracles and she’s on nothing now and she’s just a normal human being, like the rest of us. Well, yeah, normal, like the rest of us. Um, and so we, uh, we hit it off pretty well, I thought.

Uh, and obviously, uh, we had, I had a second date and a third date, but there were things about her that really didn’t sit well with me. I was a, I was a baby Christian. I had just started Christianity. I had raised Buddhist by my parents and then, uh, I decided to, I wasn’t that, and so I was nothing. Uh, and so I found Jesus rather, he found me where I was and transformed my life.

And I was, I was pretty gung-ho for him, uh, a lot more than she was. Uh, I wasn’t going to bars and, and, you know, and, and stuff. And when I met her, there were so many red flags about her that it was like a carnival. And I didn’t like a lot of the things she did, but there was a familiarity with her that I couldn’t, I could not stop.

I [00:06:00] could not ignore it. And I couldn’t turn away from her. I couldn’t walk away from her. Because there was just so much familiar about her that I, and I still to this day, I, it can only have been God that wanted me with her. Uh, ’cause I would’ve walked away. There

Shelly Hankins: was Aunt Mess Express

Josh Hankins: so many things that, that

Shelly Hankins: it’s a mess.

Josh Hankins: Were not good. And I would, and I would tell her things like, I don’t like it when you do that. And she’d quit. Like right there on the spot, no, no fights, no nothing. She would just quit and she, and she wouldn’t go back to it. And there was, there was a lot of things that I crossed off on the red flag list lot just by doing that.

It was a huge list. And, and, and it was like one after the other, after the other. There was no stronghold that I said, I don’t like that, that she hold onto not a single one. Uh, and so, you know, that really helped paved the way for where we are now. Uh, I think what was in, how, how long was it before I proposed to you?

Shelly Hankins: It was the next month.

Josh Hankins: The next month? Yeah. And we got married within like six months.

Shelly Hankins: No, a year.

Josh Hankins: A year.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah. We had to wait for the divorce to be filed. [00:07:00]

Josh Hankins: We had wait for a while for that. Uh, yeah. Okay. Wait, wait.

Dawn Pruszkowski: You, wait, wait, wait, wait. You proposed in a month

Josh Hankins: Yes.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Of meeting her?

Josh Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Oh, well, like how did you know that this is the next step and.

That I’m supposed to do with her?

Josh Hankins: Well, with, again, with all the red flags that she had, and the fact that she had corrected them is as soon as I said it, and the familiarity, even after all they were, all the red flags were corrected. I still, I still, I couldn’t shake the fact like I knew her. Uh, and I, I’ve never met her before in my life.

I’ve never seen her before in my life. But my brain said that I knew her, that I knew her, that I knew her, that I knew her. It was driving me nuts that I couldn’t figure out how, like it literally, it for like maybe the first two years of our, our marriage or our time together. I, I just knew her, um, and I couldn’t place it.

And, um, once we were locked into that marriage, that’s when I started to dissolve and I just started seeing her for who she was and that that feeling wasn’t there [00:08:00] anymore. And I was like, man, that’s so bizarre. God clearly wanted me with her and

Shelly Hankins: mm-hmm.

Josh Hankins: He made it happen. Uh, and so, yeah, I knew within a month, I knew within a month that she was the one for me, um, because of how willing she was to change for me.

How, and I had not experienced that in my previous marriage. Um, either

Shelly Hankins: one.

Josh Hankins: Yeah, either one. I was married twice before and, uh, yeah, no, obviously I wasn’t a Christian. Come on, gimme, gimme, you know, I was with the way of the world. Um, and so I was determined to do it right. And, uh, I just, I just knew, and the first two I picked and she picked me, so I figured it was a little bit different.

I’m, I’m a lousy pick. Um, and so far she’s a pretty good picker. Oh

Shelly Hankins: yeah. Were, your picker was a

Dawn Pruszkowski: little bit broken, huh?

Shelly Hankins: At the, at the wedding. His mom was like. Are you sure you wanna do this? She’s like, he has a lot of baggage. And I was in the honeymoon phase and I’m like, oh, of course. So,

Dawn Pruszkowski: so how did you, did you know he was going to propose to you [00:09:00] after just one month?

Shelly Hankins: Yeah.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Did you have that

Shelly Hankins: feeling he was gonna do, do it? I, I picked out the ring. I’m like, if, if you get me a ring, I would like this one. And then his ring matched and,

Josh Hankins: yeah, we talked about it. I, I learned my lesson. I, I was gonna, I was gonna. Make her equal parts of like, Hey, if this is what I’m thinking, rather than spring it on her and have her say no, or, you know, it’s only been a month.

Uh, and so, you know, it, it makes it sound funny that I proposed in a month, but she was on board with it like we were. This is an equal planning, uh, together and, uh, I don’t know who said, I love you first. I know that I wrote it in the dust, uh, on her, one of her tables in her house. Uh, she had some dust, like an obscure spot that she didn’t clean regularly, but I wrote it in Russian so she couldn’t read it.

And I was, I was a Russian minor in college. And, uh, and so I, I decided that’s, I, I know like maybe four phrases that I can remember, and that was one of ’em. And so I wrote it in the dust, uh, well, with [00:10:00] the cheese at the end of the first week maybe. Yeah, I, I knew pretty quick.

Shelly Hankins: Hmm.

Josh Hankins: Pretty quick. It was, she was the one,

Shelly Hankins: yeah.

He would say it in, in Russian and then I would say, what? And he would say, I like your hair. And

Dawn Pruszkowski: I’m like,

Shelly Hankins: oh,

Dawn Pruszkowski: okay.

Shelly Hankins: I’m like, oh, okay. Thanks.

Josh Hankins: Oh, slick. Is that what

Dawn Pruszkowski: you wrote? Was was Russian? I like your hair.

Josh Hankins: No, no. I wrote, I love you. I don’t know how to say I like your hair, but she didn’t, she didn’t Russian.

The Relic alphabet doesn’t look like English, so she, it didn’t sound like, it didn’t look like what I was saying in Russian either. And so she had no clue of one way or the other.

Shelly Hankins: I thought I wrote it in the dust and then

Josh Hankins: No, I wrote it in the dust in Russian. Mm-hmm.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah,

Dawn Pruszkowski: we

Shelly Hankins: were both feeling it, for sure.

Dawn Pruszkowski: So how did you tell your family and friends and, and were they on board with this too, or what?

Josh Hankins: Well, you already know how my mom felt about it. So my, my parents are, are, were pretty good. They, they know me and you know, they accept whatever decisions I make. They’re pretty hands off as far [00:11:00] as that goes. Um, obviously they care, but they know that they’re not gonna try to talk me outta something.

You know, they, they say My life is my life. And they always said that, ever since I found Jesus, or my dad says, after I started the Jesus thing, things had gotten really better for me. Uh, my dad is still not a Christian. Uh, we’re working on it

Shelly Hankins: even though he had a miracle.

Josh Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah. But his mom, I was the only wife who got her star sapphire ring, so.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Ooh.

Shelly Hankins: I had her support.

Dawn Pruszkowski: So you’re special.

Josh Hankins: I’m Well. She’s the only one they liked, which is why she got the warning

Shelly Hankins: and the,

Dawn Pruszkowski: okay.

Josh Hankins: The other two didn’t get a warning. And, and she was raised, her father was a Christian and she was raised in a Christian home and she went to church occasionally. She just didn’t live her life like she did.

Uh, she didn’t know how to lean into him. She didn’t know how to have that relationship, that important relationship.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah.

Josh Hankins: Which is funny that we’re both these people going into our [00:12:00] marriage and neither one of us really know how to have an important relationship Clearly. I’m the common denominator in two divorces.

And, and she doesn’t know how, where she, her, her mom abandoned her when she was young and she had a stepmom, but she still had those issues and then she, you know, didn’t act like Jesus was really, you know, for her. And so we both had relationship issues when we went into our relationship. And I think that might’ve been what caused, um, the whole roommate kind of phase where after the honeymoon phase hit, you know, our son was born.

We just kind of got distant and I think it’s ’cause neither one of us really knew what the next steps were. Neither one of us were equipped to understand what actually was entailed in it. Yeah. You know, I, I was very much me and she was very much her and we had a hard time making her like me or her making me like her.

Right. And, and we had a hard time understanding how to work together rather than trying to transform the other to be what we needed them to be.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Okay, well let’s, before we get to that [00:13:00] part,

Josh Hankins: sure.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Let’s go back to a wedding. ’cause we skipped right? We, the story, the, a big chunk of the story.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah. We had a small local pool and I, uh, they, they closed down at seven and then we used their space and it was just 43 total.

And we, we did the, I dos we had, we just did Giant Eagle. It’s a local store. Sandwich rings and a nice little cake. Nobody would pay attention to us. So we cut the cake without anyone paying attention. And then my mom notices that. She’s like, who cut the cake? I’m like, who do you think cut the cake?

Josh Hankins: Yeah. We, we, we had, we had things to do.

And she was late. She was late for the wedding. She was, she was, she couldn’t find the flower for her dress. And

Shelly Hankins: No, no, no. It was the flower petals for the flower girl.

Josh Hankins: Oh, okay. She couldn’t find, she couldn’t find flowers, girl.

Shelly Hankins: She’s like, forget the flowers. We don’t need the flowers for the flower girl.

Josh Hankins: Just, I just need the, I just need the bride. [00:14:00] Don’t, I don’t need, no one needs flowers. No one needs a dress. No one needs shoes. Like, none of that’s important. What we needed, uh, desperately was what we needed to have, uh, the bride in the groom, we had a pastor. Well, was

Dawn Pruszkowski: this her? This was her first wedding, right?

Josh Hankins: This is her first wedding. This is my first wedding.

Dawn Pruszkowski: So she needs a dress that’s,

Josh Hankins: well, she had one, she had all of that. Yeah. She just didn’t have the flower.

Shelly Hankins: The flower girl flowers.

Josh Hankins: She’s minor.

Shelly Hankins: She’s gonna do pets.

Josh Hankins: She’s minor. OCD. Mm-hmm. And if 10 things go her way, but one of the things that goes her way didn’t happen the way she planned it.

She’s a mess.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah.

Josh Hankins: Uh, and so she needed those flower petals and I, I was, I had to convince her that she did not need those flower petals, that she, I just needed her, you know, I just needed her to show up to the wedding. Uh, everyone else did their part. She just needed to do hers and, uh,

Shelly Hankins: just show up.

Josh Hankins: Yeah, just show up.

She did. And, uh, it was a, it was a beautiful little ceremony. [00:15:00] The, the pastor showed up on a motorcycle, you know,

Shelly Hankins: his wife did the pictures.

Josh Hankins: Yeah. It was, uh, we, we was, uh, I don’t know. It’s something I think our, both our parents sets of parents, like really appreciated, uh, because my parents like our bikers and, you know, and, and it’s just not that we planned it that way either, it’s just.

That’s just how it happened.

Shelly Hankins: I didn’t even know he showed up on a motorcycle. ’cause I was late.

Josh Hankins: You saw him right away on one.

Shelly Hankins: I don’t remember that.

Josh Hankins: Oh yeah. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah, it was at, so you had a quick wedding at at a, at the local pool. The pool’s not even there anymore. It’s

Shelly Hankins: like a three minute drive away from the apartment we had, so.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Mm-hmm. So did you take a honeymoon after? Your wedding?

Josh Hankins: We did not, we’ve not yet. We’ve actually never had a honeymoon.

Shelly Hankins: Not yet.

Josh Hankins: It’s, it’s never been Right. You know, it’s always been, uh, well, in the very beginning of our marriage, it was very much paycheck to paycheck and there was no [00:16:00] saving money and there was no, there just wasn’t happening.

Shelly Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Josh Hankins: Yeah. Um, and so we, we still we’re still owed it. I want to go on a cruise. Um, yeah. And I think she’s okay with that.

Shelly Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Josh Hankins: I don’t know if she’s okay with the cruise. I want. I want to, I wanna take a cruise to Alaska, but she gets cold. If she even looks at thermometer that’s below 70 degrees, she’s cold.

And so I might have to do a Bahama cruise just to make her happy, which is a good compromise. ’cause I still just want to be on a cruise. Mm-hmm. I was, I told you I was in the Army, but it was also in the Navy. I did both. I, I really fell in love with the sea when I was in the Navy, and I would love to go on a cruise and not have to work.

I’d love to go on a cruise and just look at the ocean, smell the ocean, look at the night, sky on the ocean, and not have to do anything. And I, I, I really like her to share in that moment so she would know how much. How awesome it is. It really, it truly is an awesome experience.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Have you lived an unforgettable love story?

We wanna hear it [00:17:00] in unexpected love stories. We’re collecting real stories of love that came out of nowhere or changed everything. Whether it started with a glance of prayer or second chance, your story matters and it could inspire the world. Visit unexpected love stories.com and share your love story today because the

Shelly Hankins: world needs more story.

Is like yours.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Okay. So you got married, no honeymoon.

Josh Hankins: No honeymoon,

Dawn Pruszkowski: but you started life off together in a honeymoon phase?

Shelly Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Josh Hankins: Oh, oh yeah. For like the first two years, yeah. Up until our son was born and, uh, maybe just a little bit after, but she had severe postpartum. Um, after pregnancy, and, and again, she was still on the medications for bipolar, which she quit cold Turkey when she found out she was pregnant.

And then she was told through clinicians and, uh, OBGYNs which one she could still take. And, and that was just a hormone [00:18:00] rollercoaster ’cause nothing ever got really rebalanced. And then afterwards everything started settling again and nothing got rebalanced. Um, and that was, that was, you know, what a time to be alive.

That was, um. And so, you know, we, we made it obviously. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we didn’t really fight a whole lot for it. It was just, it was just trying emotionally. Um. Mm-hmm. And she was going through things that I couldn’t understand, that I couldn’t help her with. ’cause I’d never understood and never knew. Um,

Shelly Hankins: well, I grew up with my dad and we didn’t go over a lot of how to process emotions, how to speak to one another.

And so it was like a shutdown and runaway. So if there was an argument, we would just. Like, I wouldn’t wanna talk about it, just walk away, run away. And, and then I think that has a lot to do with the bipolar diagnosis in high school, because if you’re a teenager, you have all those emotions, those hormones, and if you’re not taught how to process those and speak to one another, it, it’s [00:19:00] easy to just diagnose as, oh, you’re bipolar.

Mm-hmm. And if you go through the checklist in that DSM book or whatever it is at the time. I must have said yes enough that they’re like, oh yeah, you, you’re diagnosed with this. Have anti-seizure medications that’ll help you. And eventually he is like, I don’t think you’re bipolar. And so it planted the seed, like maybe I’m not, and then I would go on these women re retreats for women and I would forget my medication.

And so I’d say to the ladies, pray for me. And I’d get all freaked out and it turns out. Nothing bad happened. And so when I would come home, I would half of all the doses and I’m like, maybe I really, anyway, I weaned myself off of those eventually, and I went to a psychologist and I got undiagnosed from being bipolar.

So

Josh Hankins: yeah, it turns out you never know. They were just mistaking her inability to process [00:20:00] emotions and her minor OCD with bipolar disorder. When she get frustrated that she couldn’t be in control of something that all, yeah, that’s because she’s bipolar. Like no, that doesn’t sound right at all. No. And so, yeah, I mean just her mannerism.

So it’s like she wasn’t manic, she wasn’t one way and then another, you know, she was, she was always the same person i’s like, there’s no bipolar here. Like I’m pretty sure you’d be like two different mood sets in bipolar, two different extremes. And there it was. Never that she, you know, if I did something that made her mad, she showed anger.

Something happened that was sad. She showed sadness. I like her emotions are in check. She just didn’t know how to describe ’em. She didn’t know, you know, like, how are you feeling? Like, I’m angry. But she felt dumb for being angry over something, so she wouldn’t understand that it’s anger.

Shelly Hankins: So that led to a lot of communication problems.

Mm-hmm. Until we, we eventually went to, you do all the things for marriages, like the, the seminars and the. The small groups and [00:21:00] the EXO conferences. But the one that helped us a lot was love and respect, and it gave us language for, you know, blue and pink. You know, women, they’re, they ultimately need love.

Men ultimately need respect, that honor thing. And, uh, once we learned that, that helped a lot. So.

Josh Hankins: Mm-hmm. I, it didn’t get us out of the, the, out of the hole, but it, it definitely helped, it definitely kept us from bearing ourselves deeper in it. Okay. Uh, it, it kept us from sinking and gave us a, a level foundation for us to start working from.

Um, because, well,

Dawn Pruszkowski: I think it’s amazing that, um, you guys tried so hard with so many different conferences and different workshops and all the different things. That’s a lot of couples give up before that.

Josh Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Dawn Pruszkowski: But you guys tried that.

Josh Hankins: I learned a long time ago, and I don’t even know who told me the wisdom of this, [00:22:00] um, but I remember holding onto it as something, as a, as a good foundation for a marriage.

And it’s, it was that love isn’t what makes a marriage work, it’s commitment, you know? And so I could love my wife more today than yesterday. ’cause yesterday she could have backed into my car and I could have been, which has happened. Which has happened. And I could have been, I could have been really mad at her.

Um. You know, not because she backed the car, because there’s an expense I don’t need to pay, you know, like nobody else is paying for this. You know, I’m not suing my wife to fix my car. It’s coming outta the same pocket. Uh, and so it, it’s just, uh, it’s when I, when I understood that, you know, walking away and staying away wasn’t really an option.

How am I committed to this person? I mean, I could be miserable and angry at her, but I’m committed. Um, and so we’ve learned other steps since then to not be miserable and angry at each other. Mm-hmm. Um, like for that love and respect, we learned that, you know, we’re two good-willed people and she doesn’t wake up in the morning thinking, [00:23:00] ha, I can’t wait till I get him today.

He’s gonna regret waking up.

Shelly Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Josh Hankins: You know, and, and I don’t wake up thinking, how can I hurt her feelings? How can I show her a way that that says, I’m so mad at her. I don’t want to, I don’t wanna show my love language. You know, it’s, it’s not how we don’t do that. And, and nobody sets out until it’s broken.

Like, broken, broken. Nobody sets out with the intent of harming their spouse. Nobody wakes up thinking, I really hate this person, and I, I can’t wait to hurt them or punish them. Um. There is punishment in thoughts. Sure. When, you know, we act out. So if something we feel harmed or slighted, we act out in ways that seem very, uh, punishing because, you know, well, she shouldn’t deserve to have a good day because of what she did to me, but we don’t wake up with that thought.

Mm-hmm. Um, that’s just a re a reaction, a poor reaction to how we feel. Mm-hmm.

Dawn Pruszkowski: So was that love and respect was when you began to see things shift or what caused the shift to start moving for you? [00:24:00] And I know for you guys you could say God played a big part.

Josh Hankins: Yeah. A it. Oh, absolutely. The love and respect was the, was out of all the conferences and seminars and marriage retreats and whatnot, we did was the very.

That was the instrumental foundation piece that gave us the foothold to be able to climb out.

Shelly Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Josh Hankins: It was absolutely the, the tipping point. It just was very slow to start with. Uh, it seemed like it was a drastic one because, you know, we had, we had language we could use to help identify things. Mm-hmm.

But we still had hurt feelings. We still had brokenness. We still had, um. Issues with each other that were unresolved bitterness in some areas that went unchecked, that, you know, so we’ll just ignore it and just keep moving forward. Um, which would show up in, in other things later on. And so the fighting was few and far between.

From that moment we started not fighting as much. We started using better language when we. Um, we, we just were more respectful to each other in, in those respects. Like I [00:25:00] highly recommend that, that love and respect for anybody. It’s Emerson Ridge, um, and his wife. But after, after that, we had a couple other things that were kind of like aha moments.

Uh, we had another podcaster on our podcast that was going through a, a, a marriage, kind of her whole ministry was, was helping with marriages and, um. We learned a lot from her and including to the point at the very end, we went kind of through a therapy session at the end of the podcast and that really helped catapult us.

Um, instead of the slow incline that we were, that we were going on, it kind of made kind of like a steep one, like we got like in an elevator. It was pretty quick after that one. And, uh, and we’re still growing and we’re still learning and we’re still, um, but the bitterness is, is all but gone. The, the sourness is all but gone.

Um. You know, the shame or the fear of punishment, the things that we did to nitpick, that’s, that’s all but gone. And, uh,

Dawn Pruszkowski: mm-hmm.

Josh Hankins: And, and now [00:26:00] we’re just trying to like, relearn each other, I guess you could say. And, and you know, our son is 14 and we’re like, I, I wanna know who this is now. And now that I have a better understanding of how a relationship works and it’s not, you know, our poor understanding that got us married.

And then all that empty space in the middle, which is funny that you could easily say, we lost 10 years of our marriage easily by just not being committed to each other, by not being a spouse to each other. Um, and just being roommates. And sure we knew each other. We knew what was going on in each other’s lives.

We supported each other where we needed to, but we didn’t really grow that relationship. So now, now we have a, a wonderful opportunity to try and, uh, you know, I’m not dead yet. Neither is she. So we’ve got lots of time left to develop mm-hmm. Just a, a, a renewing of a relationship and find out who we are and if there’s any new interests, any, any things that we can find common ground in.

And.

Shelly Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Well, and it’s lovely ’cause because [00:27:00] as we, as we change, you know, and we grow, I, I, I think back to someone, another person named Josh who was on our show, and he said, um, it’s like, my wife is a butterfly. I’m, I’m, I met her in each of the stages. I, she’s, it’s a, it’s a different stage each time and I get to discover.

All over again. The different now. Mm-hmm. Now who she is and stuff. And he says it. It’s, it’s wonderful.

Josh Hankins: That’s funny that you said that because take

Dawn Pruszkowski: that.

Josh Hankins: I also give her analogy of being a butterfly, but differently. So, and I say that she’s like a butterfly, where she’s susceptible to different temperatures quicker than I am.

Different tones, temperaments, wind changes. A little breeze will flitter her around. And I’m like a buffalo. I’m almost immune to everything that bothers her like it does. It’s, it’s nothing to me. Uh, it’s, I’m a, it’s like a boulder in a field and, you know, and, and you know, this is just an analogy. So when the wind blows at five [00:28:00] miles an hour, it barely moves my hair, but it makes her go on a wild journey.

If the temperature lowers 10 degrees, it does nothing to me, but it, but it’ll freeze her, you know? And, uh, and, and in the beauty that she brings to the table. Is more affected by change, more affected by environment, more affected by little things, even including her hor hormones, whereas there’s very little that stays the course or changes the course for me, I’m, I’m just planted there.

Solid. Um, I heard another lady speak about men being like umbrellas, uh, that we’re there to protect. We’re there to serve a purpose, to keep the elements off of our wife. ’cause they’re not built to take the rain. They’re not built to take the sun. That’s why, that’s what we’re for. But they are built to hold us up.

And your, your wife has to be able to hold you up so that you can do your job. And it’s because I can take it, I can take all the world beating on me. She’s not supposed to. She wasn’t created to take it, you know? And so I like the butterfly buffalo [00:29:00] analogy that I come up with, and I think it’s just so funny.

You had another, Josh bring up butterflies?

Shelly Hankins: Mm-hmm.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Yep. I love that. Okay, so in the midst of all this. Shelly, you felt called to start a podcast. Like how did that happen and how did it affect you guys?

Shelly Hankins: I was looking for what am I good at? What do I like to do and what could I make more money doing? And the next day I am curling my hair.

I’m in the bathroom, and I feel this idea, like the Holy Spirit was over my right shoulder and he planted the seed and I hear, why don’t you talk about me and share it with the world? And I was like, okay. And so then I was like, what does that look like? And then I did the, the deep dive in, in YouTube University.

How do you do a podcast? And what was really fun is I, I got the list. Everyone recommends this microphone, this, this, this. And my coworker worked in a recording studio in [00:30:00] India with professional, with professional singers. And he’s like, no, no, no. He’s like, you get these microphones, then you won’t be buying them so often.

These will last. He told me what recorder to get, how to use it and everything, and then I was sharing my excitement and what I was gonna do with one of our contractors at work, and he gave me 500 bucks and to get some microphones. And so the first one let me borrow microphones until we got our own. And so God just laid it all into place.

And it’s just if, if anyone’s thinking of podcasting, just do it. It is so incredible. You meet the most amazing people and you learn things well. We have learned things that they don’t even teach at church, like Deliverance didn’t know that was a thing, didn’t know you do that right on a regular basis.

And I didn’t know there was healing with God and the Holy Spirit. There’s Splunk now, there’s deliverance. There’s all kinds of help for [00:31:00] people out there to get them free from so many things, and that’s. You know, eventually led us to, uh, the Heal With God podcast person, Heather O’Brien. And then that’s who helped us ultimately.

And it was just really cool how God works out these se He will work out a series. Uh, the first time I noticed it, we had a couple guests and they were talking about their trip to heaven. And then when they were, when we were releasing episode, their episodes, our pastor. The church started a series for that month called Heaven is Here.

And I’m like, what? And so it’s just, God just shows. He keeps showing up in little ways like that and

Josh Hankins: see how Excited. Love, see how excited she is. I was not. Um, and she wanted me to co-host with her and I was miserable. I’m introverted and so it doesn’t seem like it ’cause I can speak. I’m, I’m a show pony.

Um, but I, I did not relish speaking to people regularly. Especially on a [00:32:00] schedule, like at two o’clock you’re talking to someone. I’m like, oh no. And I would tell the guests that I hate it. I’m just here. ’cause my wife asked me to be, and she eventually got tired of me saying that, and she’s like, quit, quit telling people that.

So I quit and I just kept it to myself and I was miserable. I, I hated doing it. I hated taking time out of my day. And I remember distinctly going in the kitchen one day after a podcast, maybe like eight, nine podcasts in, and I remember God. Audibly telling me almost in my, could just be it in my, my soul, um, that when two or more people are married, they’re, they, you know, they become one flesh.

And that this was my podcast, not her podcast, right? Because we’re one person and he just told the person that was gonna do it and that he needed me there clearly because, um, I’m an important part of the one, and she’s the other important part of the one, right? And without me, she’s only doing 50% of a podcast.

And that really kind of changed my tune on that. I quit crying about it. I quit, I quit complaining about it. I’m like, yes, Lord, you got me. Uh, and so I was a [00:33:00] little more, I wouldn’t say I was enthusiastic about it, but I certainly wasn’t dragging my feet and upset about it.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah. I love that.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Oh, so anything else that’s happened in your, uh, in your marriage since, since then?

Things have changed as you’ve grown.

Josh Hankins: Um, no. It was very recent actually, that we had that last podcast for the Healing with Heather O’Brien.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah. We did a marriage series and it, God put it on my heart that we’ll do a series on healing marriages. And then I invited Heather and like with each month I go to a women’s breakfast and we would just talk about normal things, you know, and I noticed a pattern that a lot of us had a lot of things in common about marriage.

And, uh, so I brought those onto the podcast and we did two episodes with Heather. One for wives, one for the husbands, and then, then that, that was the Saturday. Then the [00:34:00] following Friday was one more marriage conference, and it was like five weeks of small groups. And one night we just plowed through ’em as a big group and uh, and then God.

Wanted us to record by ourselves the next day, and it just, we’re just still letting everything unfold. And, and then here we are this weekend, the, the next weekend talking about our marriage. So it’s just really fun to see God continuing to work through all aspects.

Josh Hankins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we, we had that, that steady incline from the Love and Respect series, which was making it progress.

But the healing of the bitterness, the healing of the, of the, the self shame and loathing that we had had, that had occurred on a, on a, a different podcast. ’cause she, she wouldn’t really tell the things to me in a way that was something I could help with. And I am a guy, so I just bottle everything up, you know, like, who’s gonna tell, like just keep it to [00:35:00] myself.

I don’t have any friends. She has friends and they have husbands, and that’s, that’s how my life goes. Um, and so it, it really took that last one to kind of like push it through the rest of the way. So it was already, it was kinda like a little backup. It was just slowly going through a tube and it took that last one to add that pressure to, to really launch it and it kind of pushed us forward.

We’re, I would, I wouldn’t say that we’re in a second honeymoon phase, but I would say there’s definitely a different tone right now to our marriage, a different paradigm shift. Uh, it’s just, it’s just different and it’s not in a bad way. Uh mm-hmm. It’s just, isn’t that same gloomy, um, bitter? I don’t look at her and, and I never really looked at her bitterness, but if she mentioned certain things, I would be like, Hmm, nah.

You know, it would be like my trigger words and like that’s, we’re not, no, we’re not playing that. I don’t, I’m not falling for that again, you know? Uh, and so we’re a lot better off than we were and uh, I see it only getting better.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Oh, I love that. [00:36:00] So do you have any words of wisdom that you can share with couples that are finding themselves stuck in that roommate phase and they need a ladder to help ’em get out?

Shelly Hankins: One of the things that helped me a lot was. I can’t change him. I can’t do it, so I have to give it to God. And so there’s this. Pray for him. Um, pray for Him book, and Amanda Hayhurst writes it. And so I got through that and then I kept doing it over and over. It’s 30 days over and over. I’m like, why would I stop?

And that. Was, yeah, I highly recommend that to anybody and give it to God. And don’t forget, it’s not wrong. It is just different. Like if he loads the dishwasher a certain way mm-hmm. It’s not wrong, it’s just different. So just like, just let it go, you know, don’t let the little things build up. It doesn’t matter.

And, uh, it’s not wrong. It’s different. And then ask if you need help with something, just ask. [00:37:00] And then don’t plan things. Don’t plant ideas or conversations. Don’t have a whole conversation with your spouse in your head. Without consulting them first.

Josh Hankins: Oh yeah. Yeah. I’ve lost many conversation I wasn’t a part of.

Yeah. I’d come home and she was already mad because of something I didn’t say, but she thought I was gonna say.

Shelly Hankins: Yeah.

Josh Hankins: It’s like no big time. Yeah. Which just happened. Uh, and I would say, you know, obviously pray to God every day together. Uh, but do it in a light of your spouse does not think the way that you do.

Your spouse has different dreams than you do, has different aspirations than you do, has different goals than you do. There are some common goals, obviously, to, to grow your family and, and, and to love your spouse. But there are some, you know, singular goals, self, self goals that aren’t yours. And I think if you come to the understanding that you can’t make your spouse like you, but you do have to like them for who they are.

You know, why else did you marry them? [00:38:00] Uh, I think understanding that they are a different human being. They think different, they hear different, they speak differently, and it doesn’t, it’s, and it’s, again, like she said, it’s not, it’s not wrong, it’s just different. Um, understanding that and then praying to God with that in mind will help give you, uh, some leverage in your marriage will help give you some of that upward momentum.

You know, as we said before, a wife needs love. Women need love. They need to have acts of love. They need to feel loved. Uh, and that is not natural for men. Uh, you know, we assume that a woman loves us until they say, we don’t love you. This is why most men are surprised by divorce. We we’re like, what happened?

Right? It was like, well, you know, I wasn’t happy. We’re like, yeah, well, neither was I, but that’s, no, you know, that’s no reason. That doesn’t mean you don’t love me. I still love you. I’m just not happy. Uh, and men need respect. You know, the Bible says, honor your husbands. And you know, when we feel respected, we do we’ll.

Like, we’ll knock it outta the park for you. But if we feel disrespected, we act out in unloving [00:39:00] ways. And that is where the problem happens. ’cause when the woman is not feeling unloved, she acts out in disrespectful ways and you just keep getting at each other and at each other and at each other. And it started with possibly an accident.

It or, or how you were raised. You know? ’cause if I, I did something in the backyard. Oh, I cleaned this up and I did this. And all she sees is the dirt on the side that I used with my project. And she goes, it’s kind of muddy. You gonna fix that? And totally ignored what I did. That’s the last time I’m doing something in the yard, you know?

’cause you just completely did not honor with me and you just complained about what I had done. And so I don’t wanna do anymore. You know, we used, I used to have this thing where she would tell me to do stuff, uh, or ask me to do stuff, but I would do it wrong. Um, it wasn’t wrong, it was just my way. And, uh, she would tell me how I should do it.

And so I got to the point I says, look, you can either tell me to do it or tell me how to do it, but if you tell me how to do it, you do it because you already know the best way. And so I quit doing stuff altogether. And that, that was a big sign of me showing her no love at all, because she had [00:40:00] disrespected me so much.

Uh, and that was a huge problem in our, in our roommate phase. Um, so that’s, that’s, I, my advice on that is pray together, but understanding that they’re a different person. They think differently than you do. Um, and they’re not wrong. They’re just different.

Dawn Pruszkowski: Yeah. I love that Josh and Shelly, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your beautiful love story.

I know that um, what you have said is gonna just touch some lives really deeply ’cause they’re in the same place that you’ve been. Our friends. To discover more about Josh and Shelly and see their beautiful love story photos, visit our website, unexpected love stories.com, and that’s where you’ll also find links to their podcast as well as ways to reach out and chat with them.

Remember, love can begin hot and quick, but it can drift quietly. And it can still be redeemed powerfully. If this episode moved you, [00:41:00] I’m gonna ask you to please share it with just one person who needs encouragement. And if you’re enjoying unexpected love stories, the best way that you can support the podcast is by following or subscribing to it on your favorite platform and by leaving us a quick rating or review.

’cause it truly helps these stories get in in front of more people that need the joy. I hope that your heart feels lighter and full of hope after hearing Josh’s and, and Shelly’s beautiful story because I know that you know now that often the best love stories are the ones we never saw coming. So keep your heart open because love truly is waiting for you.

So we’ll see you next time.