Their marriage is in trouble — real trouble. The husband or wife may have anger issues, experienced abuse or infidelity. Where do they turn for help? Isn’t counseling expensive? How does a couple even find a counselor who will offer godly advice? Isn’t it easier just to call it quits?

Houston-area Hans and Star Molegraaf, founders of Marriage Revolution ministry and long-time FamilyLife speakers, have walked in those shoes and can provide a path forward. The couple, now married 30 years and parents of six children, started their lives together on shaky footing. They were young (barely 19 and 20), finances were a problem, and a baby was on the way. While Hans was delighted with the idea of being a father, Star had been ready to call it quits even before the wedding.

Although Hans had grown up with Christian parents, that was not the case with Star. The two were living secular lives full of dysfunction. Adding the responsibility of a baby was just another flame under the powder keg of their relationship.

They tried turning to church, but the message wasn’t sinking in, and nobody mentioned marital problems. Without a genuine relationship with Christ, church just seemed a place where you “put on a happy face” and pretended everything was fine. Hans even dragged Star to a discipleship class because, “She needed Jesus.” “Little did I know I needed Jesus,” he said. But in that class, when the pastor shared the Gospel, Hans “felt like I heard it for the first time. I received forgiveness, but I still had no idea what a relationship with God looked like in the day-to-day. I thought I could overcome our struggles by myself.”

Both speak freely about their difficulties. Hans admitted he was a conflict-avoider who stuffed resentments until he’d explode in violent anger. Star said she contributed to the problem by pushing his buttons to spark a reaction. All around, their relationship was a train wreck and headed for divorce – fast.

Their daughter Kylie was barely two when Star walked out and into the arms of another man.  (Spoiler alert, that daughter now works with Marriage Revolution, a glimpse of the restoration God had in store for the Molegraaf family.)

When Hans moved back in with his parents, they insisted he attend marriage counseling – something he began alone, because by that time Star was done – done with him, done with their young marriage. Thanks to the generosity of his parents who helped cover the cost, Hans obtained wise, Christian counsel.

As he kept working with the counselor, Hans started to learn how to apply the Gospel to everyday moments in life and began to pursue Star, hoping to reconcile.

For Star’s part, she wasn’t ready to believe that Hans’ transformation was real. “His pursuit of me during that time was really beautiful,” she said. “At first it got on my nerves, and I tried my old behavior of pushing buttons, but he never again responded in the way I’d seen him before.”

She agreed to meet with the marriage counselor just a few times so she could “check the box” and say she’d done it, because in her mind, even though she was witnessing Hans change, she considered their marriage dead.

Star will never forget the question the counselor asked that made all the difference in their lives.

“Do you believe Jesus Christ was raised from the dead?” “Yeah, yeah, I believe that,” she answered. He disagreed, “You don’t hear what I am asking you. You believe God took a dead man out of the grave and raised him back to life again so you could be saved, but you don’t think God can heal your marriage?” That one statement changed everything.

“That’s when God decided I would see clearly,” she said. “I realized God can heal anything if you believe he can.” The Molegraafs began to watch God redirect their marriage and do things in their lives they had never experienced. Star’s posture shifted from pursuing how to get out of the marriage to believing in the marriage. They went to church together and counseling twice a week. Now they both wanted their marriage to work and believed God would make it into something beautiful. Just a few months later they developed a passion to help others in situations like theirs. They started inviting people to church and taking couples to FamilyLife Weekend to Remember retreats.

God grew a desire that they would someday work with FamilyLife, a goal that was realized in 2006, prompting their move to the ministry’s headquarters in Little Rock. Despite their life-altering story, Hans and Star were not called upon to share initially. It wasn’t until they decided to break out on their own and found Marriage Revolution in 2010 that they recorded their testimony with Bob Lepine on FamilyLife Today radio. That episode released the same week they launched Marriage Revolution back in Texas, kickstarting the fledgling ministry. (Ironically, they were invited to join FamilyLife’s speaking team several years later, on which they served from 2015-2020, until their schedule with Marriage Revolution grew too busy.) Now polished speakers after years of presenting with FamilyLife, the Molegraafs often share their story at churches or retreats.

They offer biblical resources, counseling and events “to turn your love around,” through their website, noting, “When marriage is hard, life gets harder.”

They list suggestions for those, like the more than 4,000 counseled and 1 million impacted, who are looking to get started:

Fight fair – stop fighting about nonsense and learn to fully resolve things that matter

Bring happy back – heal from lingering hurts that have robbed the happiness from your relationship

Know and be known – connect with your spouse through clear and authentic communication

Rekindle the romance – bring back the sizzle to your marriage (and learn to keep it there)

Rediscover hope – find hope regardless of what your relationship has been through

One of the driving goals of their ministry is to make counseling affordable.

“We didn’t want money to stand in the way of a couple getting help,” Star said. “When we started going to marriage counseling, we were making almost nothing. It cost $125/hour – and that was 28 years ago! How in the world were we going to afford that? It was not an option.” Thankfully, Hans’ parents stood in the gap for them. “That’s our heart behind this. We don’t ever want there to be a couple like us that needs help and can’t afford it.”

In the past 14 years, likeminded counselors joined the Marriage Revolution team.

“We had no intention of having a counseling organization, but people kept coming,” Hans said. They now provide counseling in Conroe, Woodforest, Dallas, and McKinney, in addition to their location in the Woodlands. While Hans, a certified biblical counselor, still works one-on-one with couples, he’s begun spending more time leading the team of 11, creating content and fundraising. 29-year-old Kylie manages the calendar and all things operations. Hans and Star together host focused weekend intensives privately for individuals or groups of up to 10 couples. Hans quotes data from John and Julie Gottman that found the success rate of lasting change increases if a marriage intensive is paired with structured follow-up. Couples from the intensives are encouraged to schedule a counseling session with him within the first month of the retreat and continue to meet monthly at least a few times to make sure they are making progress.

“People who are really struggling tend to find us,” Hans said, “those who’ve gone through an affair or abuse in their relationship. We do get some smarter couples who realize they are not going in the right direction and come to us before they get to that place.”

Couples can find information about the marriage intensives or sign up for counseling on the Marriage Revolution website. They’ll also see resources like an insider’s rate to DateBox, a specialty marriage-building service offered by happily.co. Couples sign up and take a short quiz to help those creating the dates better understand their preferences. The DateBox team will curate a date and send everything needed – even a music playlist and conversation starters.

“Consistent quality time is crucial for a healthy relationship or marriage. It’s why we constantly talk about the importance of having date nights. But life gets busy, and planning can be hard. So, we’ve partnered with DateBox so you can get everything you need for a fun, creative & unique date night, delivered right to your doorstep each month. Each date is a new experience so you can create memories with your special someone,” they post on the website. 

Those who access the site through Marriage Revolution’s unique code, https://datebox.thehappily.co/marriagerevolution/, get their first box free, as well as a 20% discount on all subsequent packages. In addition to a completely planned and packaged date that arrives mid-month, membership to DateBox includes unlimited access to DateBox on Demand, a library full of digital date downloads, video date night experiences, and relationship resources.

“99% of the couples who come to see me for counseling struggle with spending time together. It’s crazy that what came natural during dating has to be intentional and purposeful in marriage,” Hans said. “Date nights are critical for our marriage,” Star agreed. “At the end of the week, I needed to take off the mom hat. Sometimes getting a sitter or finding something to do wasn’t easy. This date is customized for you from start to finish with simple instructions. It comes to the door, is creative, and for me, I know the next date night is completely taken care of.”

Victoria E. wrote: “It was probably our best date since before we were Momma and Dad! We made ice cream, took dance lessons, jammed to a few playlists and played a card game to see who knew who better, it ended in a close call!”

In the past few years, Hans has felt called to capture the couple’s thoughts and process in several books.

You’re Being Lied To: The Truth About Marriage and How to Make it Work grew out of work Hans completed for his biblical counseling training. A concrete thinker, he found it helpful to make a chart contrasting what the world says about marriage vs what God says – often finding the concepts are complete opposites.

“This is one of the reasons so many marriages are struggling,” he said. “The world says marriage solves our problems. God’s Word says marriage is God’s vehicle to expose what’s wrong so we can accept God’s invitation to become more Christlike.”

The world says marriage should be 50/50 – but the Bible says to be about giving your 100%. “If you go into marriage thinking everything should always be fair, you are going to be frustrated,” Hans said. “We need to give 100% all the time the way Jesus did.”

Another concept he said couples find difficult to embrace is that while the world says marriage is about us, God says it is about glorifying him. “Realizing that how we respond to everyday things in marriage helps us see conflict as an opportunity to be more vertically focused on God. It’s not about our happiness, personal fulfillment or satisfaction,” Hans said.

Hans also has written several shorter Ebooks, the most popular, Reclaim Your Marriage: A Guide for the Spouse Fighting Alone caters to the individual standing for their marriage alone, based on Hans’ experience before Star was ready to reconcile. This short book explains how to adopt the mentality of loving and serving a spouse, regardless of what they do, say or how they are responding, modeled after the way God pursues us relentlessly. “This book offers hope to the spouse fighting by themself,” Hans said.

Reclaim Your Marriage also teaches the reader how to write a letter to their spouse appealing to them to consider an action that would lean back into the marriage, like marriage counseling or an intensive. Star said their counselor used this technique with great effect.

“That letter is powerful to get a couple in a space to work on their marriage,” she said. “It’s our number one downloaded Ebook because of our story.”

Top 10 Ways To Love Your Spouse describes what it looks like to meet your spouse’s needs in a way that shows them love, based on Ephesians 4:29. “This is your marriage manual that you should have read before your wedding day. Learn what it looks like to love your spouse in the everyday moments of marriage,” they describe on their website. “The art of marriage is to identify and meet the need of the moment,” Hans added.

92 Simple Ways To Win Big In Marriage developed from the idea that marriages are built and destroyed in the small moments in life. “How you make the coffee, a kind word, holding the door open, an unexpected kiss. This book contains all sorts of small things you can say or do to build your marriage,” Hans said.

“Don’t discount the potential impact of putting these into practice on a regular basis,” he wrote. Statements like “I appreciate you,” “I’m so proud of you,” “You did a great job,” and “How can I help you today” can go a long way. Other recommendations: Be a team, Be honest, and Be reasonable, along with specific suggestions for men and women.

Hans hopes to continue to put their thoughts and successful practices on paper to help Marriage Revolution scale their programs and allow more couples to benefit from the wisdom they’ve gleaned from their experience.

If marriages are built and destroyed in the small moments in life, why not take a step forward today — share a DateBox, check out an intensive, or attend a Marriage Revolution event.