Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard recently took some time to discuss their marriage, their upcoming pregnancy, and other aspects of their life with Focus on the Family.
The hosts asked the pair how their time as a couple changed after they married.
“We really enjoy getting to spend a lot of time together,” said Jill. “You get to spend all the time together you want,” she added, referring to their rule of always having a chaperone with them when they were courting.
One of the hosts, Greg Smalley, wondered what their fears are as the countdown to their first baby winds down.
“Fear of the unknown, that natural feeling, but at the same time we’ve got time to prepare,” said Derick.
Jill joked that she was already freaking out about pushing when she found out she was pregnant.
The couple vowed, much like Jill’s parents Jim Bob and Michelle, to stay strong as a married couple even with lots of kids and said one tool they'll use is always going out on a date about once a week.
“This is our marriage, we want to continue to have our date nights,” Derick said. “We'll have longer date night once a week, we can go out and get ice cream or [something else].”
Greg Smalley then asked Jill to give advice to expectant fathers.
“Derick has been amazing, any time day or night, even if he’s exhausted coming home from work ... he‘ll be like you go upstairs, ’I‘ll start the bath for you, if you’re not feeling well I’ll bring you fudge bars or popsicles or whatever,'” she said.
“Just asking how you can help, because a lot of times you don’t know how to help unless you ask, and you might think that you’re being helpful, but it may not be the most helpful thing.”
Greg later asked Derick about advice to the pregnant woman out there.
“Really having that patience with me, and her gratefulness, too, those things that she doesn’t take for granted, takes me to work, she says ’thank you for working for our family,'” Derick said, using his own experience as an example.
“That really encourages you as a dad, and builds you up, and I feel as men that really resonates, your role as a provider being built upon.”
Derick and Jill had a notably short engagement period, which Greg asked about.
“Once we were engaged, we felt like this only needs to be long enough to plan a wedding, and to not open us up to temptation,” Jill said.
Derick had some advice to couples who are engaged and preparing for their wedding and marriage.
“Prepare for the marriage itself, not just that wedding day ... failing to kind of take a step back together that we’re planning, it’s more then one day. Focusing on getting to know each other, communication,” he said.
“For our relationship, for example, my mom was going through a tough time because she found out she had cancer, we had to go through that together as a couple during our engagement, so it really added a new dynamic to our relationship to be able to have each other for that.”
They also discussed the backlash they got for announcing their pregnancy so early, and so soon after they got married.
“We get negative criticism for a lot of things,” Jill noted.
“For us, it was two things, we don’t know how long we can keep it a secret--when we tell my family it’s not going to last a secret for that long., and then secondly we really feel like each life is precious no matter how long so we want to not keep this blessing a secret, because even if there was a miscarriage or something like that, we would still want the child to be remembered.”
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