June 11, 2025

Love in the Deep End: Don't Punish For a Lifetime

Love in the Deep End: Don't Punish For a Lifetime

When someone hurts us—especially someone we love—there’s a deep temptation to make them pay. To bring up past mistakes in future fights. To keep score. But that’s not love—and it’s definitely not forgiveness.

In this second episode of our Love in the Deep End series, Ryan and Laura Dobson talk about what it means to not punish your spouse or your kids for a lifetime. Drawing from their own story of surviving cancer, crisis, and real emotional pain, they explore how grace restores what punishment destroys.

You’ll hear:

  • Why “keeping score” is a fast track to disconnection

  • The spiritual and emotional cost of dragging up the past

  • Parenting in crisis—and why behavior isn’t always the real issue

  • How to reset a fight with “Can I try that again?”

  • What Scripture says about how God forgives—and how we can follow His lead

This episode is for every parent, spouse, or friend who wants to stop recycling old pain and start building something stronger, even in the deep end.

Key Verse:
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” – Psalm 103:12