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"Little did I know that I almost let you go, until I caught a glimpse of life without you." Those words came at a moment when Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist's marriage was at a standstill, at a time when the husband-and-wife team Over the Rhine almost lost its husband-and-wife distinction. It wasn't until the couple decided to put everything on the back burner—including the music-making aspirations that first brought them together—and work on each other that things started to look up. The result was Drunkard's Prayer (Back Porch), their most personal work to date. Christian Music Today recently caught up with Bergquist to discuss this season in their life, and how, because of it, she's more in love with her husband than ever before.

Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler—together for the long haul

I heard you're moving.

Karin Bergquist We're moving! We're not really leaving Cincinnati, just the city portion of it. We purchased a tiny farm about an hour from the city center. We're just at a place in our lives where we've lived in the city for about 15 years, and it's been fun and great. We have a lot of memories here. So we're not going that far from our community. But we do have to think of ourselves as sort of the country extension of where we live. When you travel and you tour from city to city, and hotels, and noise, and people in your face 24/7, it's fun. But at this point we feel, when we get home, that we kinda want to be home, far from the hustle and the bustle and the maddening crowds.

That's the perfect segue to start talking about Drunkard's Prayer. I understand its inspiration arose from a desire to move to something better.

Bergquist Linford, my partner and I, have been doing band and music and this small business for about 15 years now. We have also been a couple for almost that long. We're both pretty driven people. The MO when we started the band was, "We're not going to quit this thing until we've achieved what we've set out to achieve, or until we're in the streets." And that's the type of people that we are.

Workaholics, in a way?

Bergquist Yeah, you could say that. Definitely. And I totally accuse my husband of that (laughs). We put so much energy into trying to make it happen. Money. Time. Effort. But we weren't aware of the strain that it was actually putting on our relationship. We were constantly taking withdrawals from that bank account, and making all the deposits into the band and the business. So the relationship basically went belly up. It went bankrupt. It sort of snuck up on us when we realized it, neither of us really feeling that we had the tools, whether it was because of our upbringing or we saw growing up. We didn't feel we had to tools to repair, let alone maintain, our marriage.

First of all, we had to decide, "Was it worth salvaging this?" So fortunately, through prayer, our friends, our families, and hundreds of strangers, God took us by the hand and told us that it was basically worth saving. So we made that decision, started looking after self, and just got a good counselor. [We started to] try to understand what a good marriage looks like. What it takes to maintain that.

Who first realized the relationship needed maintenance? Was it a shared responsibility? Yours? Linford's?

Bergquist I think some men are going to cringe at this, but typically it is the female in the relationship that notices it more. At least, we notice it first and probably communicate about it more frequently because we're communicators. It's part of our makeup. I have no problems with stereotypes as long as they're accurate (laughs). That one's dead on! I was probably the one initially to say, "Something's wrong."

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