Why Your Marriage Feels Disconnected and How Jesus Changes the Way You Love and See Your Spouse

On today's episode, we're diving into marriage.

We're going to talk about what does it take to have a strong marriage?

How do we put Christ at the center of it, and how do we get out of the crazy cycle that husband and wives get on, and how do we get off of it?

So today is all about building up and strengthening our marriages because we're first going to look to Christ and how he tells us to love and respect each other in our marriages.

And so come join me as I talk to my guest all about light bulb moments in marriage.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically, and purposefully.

Each week, we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, hear for your whole self, and live in line with what matters.

I want to tell you a little bit about my guest today.

Dr. Emerson Egaritch is an internationally known public speaker on the topic of male, female relationships.

Based on over three decades of counseling as well as scientific and biblical research, he and his wife Sarah developed the Love and Respect Conference, which they present to live audiences around the country.

He has just released his new book called Lipo Moments of Marriage, and he has been talking and helping people on this subject for decades.

He's written several books and he's an international speaker.

And I'm excited to have this conversation because someone that's been married for several decades, both in my own marriage and friends of ours and family members, yeah, I've seen many things.

Right.

If you've been married long enough.

And so I'm excited to have this conversation to find out some of these concepts in these tools, and just the biblical understanding of how we can have better marriages and how God actually wants us to view our marriage and actually serve and love in our marriage.

So, Emerson, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Kristen.

I appreciate it.

Yeah.

So your book has so much knowledge in it.

It has, you know, lots of examples, both of your own, and then couples that you've worked with or talked to that have attended your conference.

And I guess the first thing I'd say is the idea that, you know, a lot of us may have gotten married, even if we started out as Christians before marriage, and we saw this glamorized version of marriage.

And I think that can often not, maybe not derail us, but it can get us on a path that's more about ourselves and how we feel in our marriage instead of, are we showing up in service, in loving like Christ is?

And so what would you just share with us about what you're seeing in a lot of people's marriages?

Well, and what you described is an innocent dynamic that happens with all of us.

I mean, we are excited, we're committed.

There is an enthusiasm about the relationship, and we feel that we're making a significant contribution.

But there are usually a few things about our spouse that, you know, kind of annoy us, irritate us.

And when they don't do that, we feel happy.

And so we appeal to them to make that change.

And they do short term, but then it kind of defaults back to the way it was.

Well, you do that for seven years and you suddenly wake up, you know, do you really care?

Do I really matter to you?

Because I've appealed to you to do this.

I don't see it as a major issue.

You seem to, for some reason, not do it.

And I'm not quite sure why, but I'm becoming a little irritated, annoyed.

Some people even become angry, a little bit resentful, and they continue to appeal to the person to make this slight adjustment.

So there is this conclusion.

You know what, As I just said earlier, I must not matter, you must not care.

They don't want to draw that conclusion, but that's kind of where we land.

And now, once that attitude sets in, then we say, you know, I'll bet.

I'll bet this next time they're going to do it again.

Now we predicted it, and it came to pass.

Now we're a prophet or a prophetess, and we don't want to be right.

We just know that we are right.

And this dynamic then becomes troubling because we're frustrated.

We think we tried everything possible to, you know, make this better.

We don't think we're making unrealistic demands.

And so that's where the frustration sets in and why people begin to really live kind of like separate lives, roommates, but not really closely together.

And then you throw in what you reference, the idealism that's in all of our hearts.

And certainly if I wasn't a Christian author, I would be in Hollywood writing scripts, because I understand that idealism that's been planted there by God.

But as Christ followers, we're on the other side of Eden.

Paradise has been lost.

And yet that idealism resides within us.

And all of us have to come to a point which is one of the chapters.

Am I going to live by the holy word or by Hollywood?

And we all come to a crossroads, and that's difficult because we, again, don't really think our expectations are unrealistic.

And, and certainly if they were reversed, we would try to do what would be meaningful to them.

That's how we filter this.

So there's, there's a sense of impropriety in this and it doesn't feel fair to us.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

And I think so many people can probably relate to that at different, you know, levels or seasons in their marriage.

You know, and you definitely talk in your book about, you know, the 80%, like focusing on the 80% of what's, you know, you don't use the word good maybe, but versus the 20% of what's frustrating us or what's.

Maybe not exactly what we want.

But I have, I have fallen in that pitfall I'm sure most people you've talked to have, where there are moments in time where I started focusing on the things that, like you said earlier, frustrating to be at me about my husband are like, well, he does all these things, but I just, why isn't he doing this one thing?

And.

But when I reversed that and I stopped focusing on those things and I went back to like, reminding myself and thanking God for all the good things he does every single day, all the little things, all the big things.

Right.

My heart shifted because I wasn't focused on that 20%.

So what can you share with us about that and about the marriage dynamic?

Well, and that's a major issue.

I think the position tends to be a little bit gender led.

I think God has put these expectations in women that are very beautiful, they can be virtuous, but there are a lot of them.

And so what happens is that they can expect perhaps a little bit more.

Men tend to, you know, hey, I just wish the relationship was less negative.

She prefers the relationship to be a little more positive.

Surprise me.

Romance me.

Make me laugh.

There is this expectation of him being more than he is.

And many men just think, can we just have one day when everything's okay?

He's not necessarily wanting more, he just wants less negative.

And of course, course, that's a generalized statement.

And so we have to be guarded not to stereotype or pigeonhole people, but if we get in tune with that, it explains some of these situations that you've surfaced.

I've had many women write emails to me and say, here are the six things that are going on in my marriage that I just don't know how to deal with.

And my husband, these six things just send me through the roof at times.

And then she'll always say, but it's not him.

He's not totally him.

I have my issues too, but what am I supposed to do, Dr. Emerson?

How do I manage this?

And women do look for a third party support, particularly from a male to help them deal with their husband.

And so there's an innocence there, there's an honesty there.

And I will say, well let's do this first.

Would you write out on several pages, if possible, all the positives about him and send that to me.

And not infrequently, Kristen, they will write back.

Thank you for having me do that exercise.

I fell in love with my husband all over again.

And I think that brings home the point we don't turn a blind eye to those 20% issues that are shortcomings, the frailties.

But the scripture is clear, we bear one another's burdens, that we don't judge each other in certain areas for their faults.

Even love covers a multitude of sins, even putting it in the area of transgression.

But there is this element here in all marriages where often it's opposites attract and then opposites attack.

So she may be very sanguine, outgoing, he's introvert, shy.

And so now finally they're in a relationship, they're in a social setting.

He is elated, he's part of the conversation.

He's in Bob, where he used to be, on the outskirts, he loves it.

Then ten years into the marriage they're leaving church and she's in the lobby talking, talking, talking while he's sitting in the car waiting for her and fuming.

And the very thing that attracted him to her now is the thing that he resents.

And if we don't see that every backsided weakness that we're focused on really has a front sided strength that we really appreciated, then we're going to be questioning and doubtful what I'm saying here about the 80 20.

But in the book I unpack.

How do we get that perspective without just accepting their wrongdoing?

And part of it again is reframing and coming to that point where you do what you did.

And that is see the larger issue here, all the good things, the goodwill, the commitments, you know, there I know one woman whose husband fails in certain areas, not time oriented and yet he's extremely gifted over here.

And every time she needs that gifting, which is frequent, he serves her.

But in this issue over here, he's failing.

She has to step back and say, you know, fair is fair, you know, he's not fulfilling something I want, but he's Fulfilling a ton of stuff that, that I need over here.

And so we have to have that balanced perspective.

Otherwise we become truncated and myopic and we resent the person's character when that's an over judgment.

Yeah, absolutely.

I see that.

You know, and I've heard this idea that at least maybe, you know, in the last.

I don't know if it's the last 50 years or how many years, you'd probably know better.

But that a lot of us.

And once again, I think this goes back to the Hollywood wood versus the holy word.

A lot of us have these expectations that our partner, Right.

Our spouse should, it should check every box for us.

Right.

And that's not necessarily what marriage is about.

It doesn't, you know, I'm not saying like you don't want to have a, you know, obviously talk about, talk about intimacy in the book and about, you know, being serving and supporting, but in other words, we can't be all things at all times to our spouse.

Right.

That's why we have friends and community and other things.

And so do you see that as well, that.

And maybe that's more for females, but that we once again, that idealism that we're, we're holding on to, thinking that they should be, you know, like our, our adventure partner are the person we have intimacy with all these things.

And I think sometimes that gets in the way as well.

No, I think your discernment is right.

And that's why we have to say to ourselves, paradise has been lost.

It will be regained.

But that doesn't mean that we are to live with disappointment on an ongoing basis.

But we have to make sure we understand what our criteria is.

We have these boxes that you say, but those are boxes that we feel are important.

And what's interesting in the research on bias, and I have my PhD in family studies, the PhDs on bias is fascinating.

I mean, when Sarah's upset with me, my wife, we've been married over 50 years, it's because of her rotten disposition, right?

But when I'm upset, it's because of her rotten disposition.

You see how this works and the research is in on that.

We don't see it in ourselves.

And there is an imbalance.

We're really not fair and balanced in our approach to the spouse because these check boxes are very, very important to us.

But when we don't fulfill their checkboxes, we have a reason for that and they should be more accepting so that a wife may have all these expectations.

But many wives will say once a Month, once every several months, they have an emotional meltdown where, you know, they'll sober a drunken sailor.

You know, there is this, but he should be understanding of that.

And that's not to in any way downplay, you know, what we're saying about a female.

But we are saying there has to be a grace that we give to each other, that we extend grace in the way that we want grace to be extended to us.

And that's always a challenge.

And that point you make is the.

Is the struggle of relationships.

Same thing.

Men who are listening.

You know, I just wish she was much more sexual, that she had a desire for sex.

The other day we were at Sexually Intimate, and right in the middle of our time, she thought, oh, I've got to add milk to the grocery list, Right?

Yes.

And so he's all angry at her, and it's, whoa, whoa, come on.

First of all, she's not hardwired like you are.

And that didn't mean that she wasn't enjoying that moment.

It's that she's not wired the same way.

And it wasn't that she was trying somehow.

She's just bored with the sexual moment.

It's just that she's just wired differently.

And here's what happens.

Some guys then become very judgmental toward their wives that she, you know, she's frigid.

She's this.

I said, well, and now she shut down totally on him because of that.

You're just using me.

Your love is conditional.

And I say to guys, you know, if you look back, maybe you wanted to be sexually intimate three times a week.

And she said, let's just do two.

You had a very good thing going.

Now she doesn't want to have anything to do with you.

And you have the audacity to blame her when you were shaming her because she wasn't like you.

You need to kind of back off a little bit and realize the gift that God had given to you in her.

And you're just expecting way too much here because of your Hollywood perspective or the history of your upbringing.

You need to see how God has made her.

Peter says in 1st Peter 3, seven husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way since she's a woman.

And that same thing applies to the woman on the other side.

And we have to be thoughtful about this.

Otherwise we'll become resentful, bitter people.

And most women will outlive men.

And I've had so many widows say to me, I just became negative, angry, complaining, critical.

And then he died.

And I Realized, you know what?

I think I just overdid it.

And if I had to do it over again, some of these things, I would just let go.

This woman was a farmer's wife, and she just resented her farmer husband because he'd come through the kitchen with his muddy boots to get something and go out and there would be the mud.

And she told him again and again, you know, take off your muddy boots.

And he would forget because he was in a hurry.

And when the women were over for lunch, they were just aghast that he would do that.

One day he came through and they were all just complaining.

Then he died, and the muddy boots sat outside on the porch, and she said, oh, Lord, if I could just have him walk through the kitchen one more time in his muddy boots.

Wow.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And so when you were talking about or giving those examples about how we really can grab onto, you know, bitterness or resentment because.

Right.

It builds and builds and we don't really address it or we don't look at the 80%.

We don't focus the good things in our marriage.

Right.

We start focusing on, like you said, the muddy boots, if you will, whatever it is for us.

How do you help couples or, you know, and obviously in the book as well, navigate when you're.

You're stuck there, right.

Your heart has been hardened in some way towards your spouse.

Like, what do we do when that happens?

Right.

Well, there are two.

Two levels, I think Paul says in First Corinthians 7, 28, and, excuse me, 7, 33 and 34, the husband is concerned about how to please his wife, and the wife is concerned about how to please her husband.

And that is a fascinating verse he's saying to the couples at Corinth.

Hey, I'm not saying that you have problems in your marriage because your spouse is sinful and selfish.

In verse 28, he said, if you marry, you've not sinned, but you will have trouble.

So there are going to be troubles in marriage.

But he doesn't say, hey, in verse 33 and 34, the reason for that is your husband doesn't care and he didn't want to please you, and that's why you're having trouble.

And the reason you're having trouble is because your wife doesn't want to please you because she doesn't care.

He doesn't do that.

And he pinned Romans, the great treatise on the total depravity of the human heart.

But he says the residual effect of God's design is still there, and it's interesting that Paul appeals to the Corinthians.

Those married trust the goodwill in your spouse.

Even though at the end of the day there will be moments where you feel like they didn't want to really please you to the extent that you were hoping, that they really didn't show care to the extent that you were hoping.

This is where we have to live by the holy word, not Hollywood.

And we have to go on the base of our faith in the word of God, not on the base of our feelings.

Our feelings are not the voice of God.

So there has to be a choice we make.

Does my spouse have basic goodwill?

I say to people, did you or did you not marry Hitler's distant cousin?

And everybody's going to have to make a decision on that because day in and day out there's a frustration.

But here's the deal.

Their behavior will fall short, but where's their heart?

Are they getting up early in the morning to storyboard ways to irritate you?

Or at the end of the day, they're a good willed person.

They're not trying to be mean spirited or ill willed, though.

We can all take a snapshot of those moments when we get nasty.

And I'm talking here about the movie, not the snapshot.

You can incriminate anybody if you want to, but if the movie is showing that they are a Peter who denied Jesus as opposed to a Judas who denied Jesus, and there's a difference between the spirit of a Judas and the spirit of a Peter.

And if Jesus Christ sees your spouse more as a Peter than as a Judas, and you're coming at them with resentment and an unforgiving spirit as though they are a betrayer, they have betrayed everything you expected marriage to be, then the second point I want to make is you're judging them in a way the Lord himself isn't judging them.

And my question, I tenderly and pastorally ask, who do you think you are, God?

And so it's important that we soften this a little bit.

You're not going to lose power if there's more of a forgiving spirit.

And I talk about that in the book, that forgiveness is made easier when we come to a point where we realize a lot of times our resentments are the result of an honest misunderstanding, that we were impugning motive in this instance where there was no ill will.

Because once we start saying you did this because you don't care.

And if that's inaccurate, we've made a judgment that the Lord isn't making.

And one of the ways we can be more forgiving and letting go of the resentment isn't by just turning a blind eye to sin, but by backing off and saying, wait a minute, this is probably a gray area issue.

There's no thus sayeth the Lord.

We're fighting over spending versus saving.

Neither position is wrong, just different shades of right, which is what I talk about in the book.

And your position may be better, but that doesn't make their position evil.

And we've got to be able to negotiate these things without suddenly turning into a resentful person because they don't agree with us.

And so forgiveness becomes easier when we begin to frame it differently.

Sarah, my wife cares.

She can't not care.

And she is going to say things to me rooted in care.

I could resent that because I have one mother.

I don't need a second mother.

I want a lover, not a mother.

And so I could frame this and end up really castigating her when every woman in the room would realize, emerson, you're misreading her heart.

And the same thing.

A wife has to come to this point.

Would her husband actually die for her?

I say to people, would your husband?

All things being equal, someone comes in and says, one of you has got to die, and I'll let the rest of the family go.

Who dies?

At our conferences?

We've been doing conferences for many years.

And I say, who dies?

They all in unison, the man.

The man dies.

And in fact, I heard one the other day where the wife said, would you take a bullet for me?

He said, you know, I take a bullet for you.

You know I would take a bullet for you.

You know that.

You shouldn't even bring that up.

But you and I both know that the reason we're getting shot at is because of you.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

Too much.

That's.

That's.

Yeah, that makes so much sense.

Okay, so obviously a theme throughout the whole book and just this whole idea, right.

Of these, how do we show up in our marriages?

Is the idea.

And the biblical concept of honor and respecting each other.

So what can you share with us about that?

Well, we talk there about this book being written.

It continues to serve marriages for which we're very grateful.

I just.

Harper Collins told me again, it was 38 of all evangelical books here during the month of February.

Something.

It just continues to sell because the message is simple.

It's based on Ephesians 5:33.

God commands husbands to love and wives to respect.

And the first part, there's no debate.

But the second part, women say, well, I don't feeling respect for him.

I'm not going to be a hypocrite and show him respect when I don't feel it.

He's not superior to me.

That's the dictionary definition of respect.

You show respect to your superiors.

I'm not inferior to him.

I'm not going to be treated like a doormat.

I certainly am not going to subject myself to emotional abuse.

I really think, Dr. Emerson, your agenda here is a return to patriarchy.

I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to give him license to do whatever he wants to do and just be this dutiful wife that just goes along with everything that he wants to do.

But other than these things, I'm really open to hearing what, what you have to say about this.

And the crowd at our conferences go nuts.

Because those women are not mean spirited.

They actually are fearful that they're going to be dismissed, that they're going to be asked to do something that compromises their convictions and their character.

So they're never mean spirited.

Fear drives much of what is behind women's criticisms.

So once you help them understand that men serve and die for honor and that we're talking about unconditional positive regard toward his spirit, or while you're confronting things that are unloving and things that you don't find respectable, you don't have to become contemptuous to make your point.

Your delivery can be completely sinful any more than a man can be unloving to get his wife to show him more respect.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve these worthy ends.

But the reason God commands wives and husbands to do what they do, it's not natural for men to be loving.

Whereas he does not command wives to agape love their husbands.

No Greek word for agape is ever in the marriage portions of scripture because God put it within the heart of a woman to love.

It's within her nature to nurture.

She loves to love.

And you have to wound a woman at the level of intimacy to get her to stop loving.

She'll shut down then, but it's still within her heart to love.

I say to women, you'll say I love you 50 times.

I love the kids.

Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you.

You'll repeat it three times at the end of closing A conversation, it's just comes out of you.

So God isn't going to command you to do what he created you to do because he's not into redundancy.

So why is this important?

Because during conflict, usually a woman is feeling unloved.

And you can add to that.

She's feeling disrespected, but her natural reaction is negative.

The gestures of contempt come that the University of Washington studied for 2,000 couples over 20 years.

She is natural at being disrespectful and negative when she feels unloved to try to awaken him to the longing of her heart.

But it doesn't work.

And when a man comes across in a way that is unloving, usually it's on the heels of him feeling disrespected.

No one talks to him the way that she does.

And he's sick and tired.

And so his natural tendency 85% is just a stonewall withdrawal and.

And just go cold just does not engage.

It does not connect.

Both of these reactions, then put them on what I call the crazy cycle.

Without love, she reacts without respect.

Without respect, he reacts without love.

And this thing keeps spinning.

And I asked the question, have you ever had a conflict with your spouse when the issue didn't seem to be the issue?

You're usually on the crazy cycle.

Now all of that is the backstory.

The people who were at our conferences began to have these light bulb moments.

He realizes she's not trying to be disrespectful.

I stepped on her air hose.

She needs love like she needs air to breathe.

And she's just on the defensive.

She's insecure, she's feeling threatened and she's negatively reacting.

Not because it's her mission, her aim to show me disrespect.

She's actually trying to say, I have a need that only you can meet.

And I'm reacting this way with the full expectation that you'll decode it and you'll come toward me and say, I'm sorry, will you forgive me?

But he doesn't.

And when she reacts the way she does, he's in disbelief because he would die for her and she's dishonoring him.

But she never apologizes for being disrespectful.

Sometimes, but most often she said I wasn't as loving as I should be.

And he feels that's a setup to get him to confess that he wasn't as loving as he ought to be.

So you have these two goodwilled people who are completely missing each other and so people, though, at our conferences began to have these light bulb moments.

And they wrote me, and in our book signing line, they wrote me and these 12 chapters are related to these light bulb moments.

And the main point that I'm making to husbands and wives, and it's good news, often you don't need more effort, you just need more light.

And you can be in a completely dark room and you feel you're miles apart from each other, but you're not.

You're just inches.

But if you don't see some of the things that I'm saying, you'll go on the crazy cycle for 30 years, never interpreting the deeper cry of the other person's heart.

He's not trying to be unloving, she's not trying to be disrespectful, but we've taken up offense against the other person.

And we're absolutely convinced, particularly if you, if we get together, women in particular, and they give voice to what they're going through and they all have the same story.

And so women will say, I'm not trying to be right.

We just know that we are and men are the problem.

My goodness.

Yeah, so much so.

You know, I like some of the things you talk about in the book, you know, besides the love and respect, which is obviously very foundational.

But talk to us about the eternal perspective of marriage, because I think that's important.

I think some of the things you talk about, you know, biblically like that are being missed in a lot of marriages today.

Even people that have been Christians, you know, since they were young or since college or whatever.

I think sometimes we leave that part out of our marriage and not purposefully because we just, we've missed it.

We've missed this mission, we've missed this call.

Right.

Well, I think because we are felt need oriented so that we are in tune with what we feel.

I often say if I.

If I had a message how to get your husband to love you versus how to put on respect and obedience to Jesus Christ towards your husband who fails to be loving, which one are you going to listen to?

So we're felt need driven, and yet the biblical perspective says maybe the key to motivating to be more loving is meet a need that he has.

And when you meet that need, he'll reciprocate.

But it's counterintuitive.

But to the point you're making, the.

The challenge that is before us is coming to that point where we trust that goodwill.

I can't emphasize that enough.

And that will help us I think filter these things through the grid that God intends for us to filter them through.

But we have to have a faith component.

And I started this book with that in love and Respect.

I start with what I call a crazy cycle that I've explained.

And then, well, how do you get off the crazy cycle?

You have to get on the energizing cycle.

His love motivates her respect, her respect motivates his love.

And you motivate the other person by meeting that deepest need.

But then I end with what I call the rewarded cycle.

His love unto Jesus Christ, regardless of her respect, her reverence unto Jesus Christ, regardless of her husband's love.

And that our love and reverence for Christ spills over onto our spouse.

And whether they deserve it or not, this is the person I'm going to be.

And that's how I'm going to operate.

I was doing a series of events in Manhattan, and one lady had several degrees from Harvard.

And when I got to the rewarded cycle at the end about doing it under Christ, she said, if you'd started your conference where you ended it, I would have paid more attention.

And I thought that was very mature on her part.

So this book, we start with our value, which must be God given, not spouse driven.

And I unpack how we are going to define ourselves.

Our spouses will affect us, but they don't determine our identity.

Our identity in Christ must be brought to the marriage.

It must not be derived from the marriage.

And that's a challenge for all of us.

And Sarah will refine me, but Sarah does not define me.

Jesus Christ defines me.

And I have worth because he says I have worth.

The second point we talk about is our intent, seeing Jesus Christ beyond the shoulder of our spouse.

And in Ephesians 5 and 6, as well as Colossians 3 and 4, Paul hits this motif, as to the Lord, as to the Lord, as to the Lord.

He goes from the horizontal to the vertical, based on what Jesus taught in the Gospels, as you've done it to the least of these, you've done it unto me.

So I started our second chapter with, you've got to see Christ.

He's present.

Regardless of what your spouse is or isn't, you do this unto him.

And then thirdly, we live in light of hearing, well done, good and faithful servant.

And those three things start the whole book because I want people to realize at the end of your life, you're going to have to give an account for those things.

Did you see yourself the way Christ saw you?

Bought with a Price that you are priceless, that you are worth Jesus to the Father, and that the Father of Jesus has fond feelings for you.

And will you see Christ beyond the shoulder of your spouse?

Your spouse cannot stop you from loving and reverencing him, no matter how they behave.

This is the person God calls you to be, regardless of who they are.

Even though they fail to be who they are, they can't stop you from loving and reverencing Jesus Christ.

There's no way they can get you to stop obeying Ephesians 5:33 unto Christ.

And that's important because we're not married in heaven.

We're married to the lamb.

We're the wife of the lamb.

And there will be the marriage feast that launches us into eternity.

And the question that Jesus Christ will ask each of us, did you love your wife, Emerson?

Because you loved me.

And that will be the question he asked me, that marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate my love for Christ.

And so I've got to keep that in mind.

And if I don't have that in mind, then what we're simply doing is sociology in marriage.

And our whole mission is to get our spouse to change in order to make us happy.

And that my whole identity rests on their treatment of me.

And that's not a biblical idea, though.

It's a human feeling that we all have.

Absolutely.

So good.

Yeah.

I had written down a note.

This part isn't from your book.

It's from a woman that helps couples as well.

But I just love this quote, so I want to share it, but it's Haley Mugica.

I probably said that wrong, but she says God didn't design your marriage to make you comfortable.

He designed it to make you his, which you obviously talk about that theme in the book.

But then she just went on to say, you've been measuring your marriage by how it makes you feel.

God's been measuring it by what it produces.

Right.

Which is obviously another theme in your book.

And I think so often we forget that part.

And so I love that you started your book out with the things that you just highlighted for us, because to your point, if we all start there, marriage becomes something so different.

Right.

Much more beautiful.

And like you said, if we come with that servant heart into our marriage, in everything we do as best we can, we're still human.

Right.

We're still going to, you know, have these bumps, if you will, or have to navigate things, but it just.

It does.

It puts our marriage in such a different lens.

When we.

When we do exactly what you said and when we see it that way, which is amazing.

And one of the things I say, we don't have a crisis of marriage quite often.

We have a crisis of faith.

And unfortunately, there are a lot of believers out there who resent the Lord who are allowing them to be in this situation that they see as problematic.

It's not fair to them.

They feel they didn't sign up for this.

And maybe that person is a real problem.

My dad attempted to strangle my mother to death when I was two and a half.

They had divorced before, and then they remarried each other, and then they separated for five years after that event.

We were not Christ followers.

My mom was burdened for me, sent me to military school at age 13, and I was there until age 18.

So I come out of a real challenging home life.

And certainly I spoke at Liberty University to the student body there, 12,000 students, on being the.

The wounded healer and that God can take that and use that.

But some of us come to this point where we say, look, I'm mad at God.

I resent the Lord for allowing these things to happen, rather than coming back to this issue, hey, I understand that comfort and happiness in marriage is the longing of all of our hearts.

But what if that's not the case?

And could it be that you could do marriage God's way and be honored throughout eternity even though your spouse doesn't meet you halfway?

And the answer to that is, yes, you can do marriage God's way, even though your spouse stiff arms you and God, there's just no way you can argue against that biblically.

And that's something that's very important.

But the irony here is many of us don't realize we're sabotaging the very thing we long for.

And we assign blame to our spouse when we don't realize the part we're playing on the crazy cycle.

Without love, defensively, she reacts offensively.

Without respect and without respect, defensively, he reacts offensively.

Without love, we feel insecure and defensive, but we don't see the extent to which we are offensive.

And quite often we're the ones that are feeding the crazy cycle.

But we don't see it because back to that biased research, we give ourselves a pass on that.

And so now we're resentful people, unforgiving.

And we're blind to the part that we've played in this because we don't believe it.

We believe we have goodwill.

We don't believe they have as much goodwill.

We believe we're working on the marriage, although we're working on it in the areas that are important to us.

And we assume that if we're equal, therefore we should be the same, but we're not the same.

We are equal, but we're not identical.

And women in particular, and men in particular in those areas of their interest, whether it's sexual or emotional, we are going to move in that direction quite naturally based on our gender.

And we are going to expect that person to have the same interest, same intensity.

And if we don't see how truncated and myopic that can be, then we'll end up resenting that person and sabotaging the very thing that we want.

So now we become a very negative, complaining woman.

And you expect him to want to be connected with you emotionally, he'll stay away from you.

You want your wife to be sexually intimate because that's how you connect with her.

That leads to that emotional friendship and you're just stiff arming and pushing her away and you don't even see it.

So part of the challenge is whether or not we're willing to, to come to a point of listening in particularly to what I'm saying in this book, or are we going to include, I am a hopeless, helpless victim.

I have no influence, I have no way of making this person into, you know, the one that I want them to be.

And so now we're just going to pout and protrude our lower spiritual lip with the thought that God is somehow going to be manipulated by us.

And he won't.

He'll remain silent.

But we have to come back and ask ourselves though, and this is even more interesting, is God a cosmic killjoy out to ruin our marital party or has he really designed it?

If we follow the game plan that he has revealed to us in the Scripture, that which has been revealed to us holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit he's revealed in this generation.

Paul in Ephesians 3 said, and so Ephesians 5 is coming out of that.

This is coming from Abba Father's heart.

And if we'll act on it over a period of time consistently unto Jesus Christ.

Do we actually think that in the long run that a good willed person that we're married to is not going to respond positively?

80% Of the time I say to men, do you actually think if you are humble and do the loving thing in obedience to Jesus Christ, that this good willed woman who's not in an adulterous relationship, because all bets are off when that Happens that she's not going to respond to you.

And every woman is aghast if any guy thinks anything other than that.

Yes.

Well, here's the deal.

On the other side, men live by an honor code.

They're not women.

And when you apologize saying I dissed you and I was wrong, I dishonored you, I was wrong, that was not my intent.

Can you trust my heart and just apologize for being disrespectful?

You don't even have to be proactive in that.

Just say you're sorry for dishonoring and use that vocabulary word.

Do you think a good willed man is not going to respond?

I say to every man, if she did that, some guys start to cry.

Even if she ever said that to me, I would be in utter disbelief.

And so she has to have the confidence that if she does this, the other person is probably going to meet him halfway quicker than they think.

But we don't believe that.

And that's why I say, is there a crisis of faith here rather than a crisis in marriage?

And it's important that we get time alone and weigh this and not become insecure and sudden how I don't have the power.

I'm just this hopeless, helpless victim.

No, you're not.

You are not.

God would never instruct you to do this if he felt you were that powerless.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, two things there, obviously, you know, you're talking about we, we have to do a personal assessment, self reflection, right.

We have to understand, like you said, it's not just the other person, right.

We play a part in this, the way we show up in our marriage and that we can change that at any point if we realize, right.

Like you said, we're either not showing up in a loving way, especially if you're the husband, if you're not showing up in a respectful, you know, or dishonoring way.

So I think that's important because I think a lot of people, we stay busy and we don't do that, right.

We don't actually step back to say, you know, and then also you've, this has been a theme I've heard many times, different authors that a lot of us see, we focus on our problems or our struggle or our frustration instead of saying our God is bigger than all those things.

Right.

Which is sort of the thing like are we focusing on God and what God says about marriage instead of the momentary frustration I have in my marriage?

Right.

Or if you have a, you know, maybe a bigger marriage world issue, but we focus on the problem more than we focus on the Creator, that can help us move beyond the problem.

Yeah.

And that's why the challenge always is to figure out when we're focused on the problem, are we saying our spouse is the problem and we assassinate character in the process?

That you cared and if I really matter to you, you wouldn't do this.

And we're very judgmental.

Yeah.

And that's not necessarily pleasing to Christ.

But because we feel like we've done everything in our power to get a message through to that person and they're not responding, we come to a point where we justify that behavior because we don't know what else to do.

And unless I yell and scream, they don't get around to doing what I need to have done.

And so that becomes the pattern.

The angry male, the embittered male.

Colossians 3:19.

The contentious woman of Proverbs.

And what I say to people is first and foremost you need to please Jesus Christ apart from your spouse.

And if you step over that line in an area you know in your conscience and your heart that isn't pleasing to the Lord, but you're justifying it because you feel so despairing in the situation.

I get that.

But that doesn't mean that you can then continue on as though somehow there's a footnote in the parchment in the Greek text from the first century.

Oh, Emerson Eggerich is an exception to Ephesians 5:33.

There is no footnote.

And so I have to back up and say, okay, this may not be as fair as I want, but can I please Jesus Christ in this and that?

Everything I do toward Christ matters.

Nothing is wasted.

And we challenge people.

Focus on the family.

Sponsored.

As for many years they spent $50,000 to evaluate the long term impact of love and respect on marriages.

And the results were extremely powerful.

We had what we call the marital satisfaction scales, which are typical research scales of how, how do you weigh the satisfaction in your marriage?

And that can go up and down based on circumstances.

Then we have the spiritual satisfaction scale, which is I ask people to put a stake in the ground to do what they do unto Jesus Christ regardless of what their spouse does.

I would call men and women.

We had 3,000 people present.

800 To a thousand people would come forward.

I said, apart from your spouse, put a stake in the ground and you're going to do this unto Jesus Christ because you are a faithful person who loves him well.

This spiritual satisfaction scale would go up after the conference, as would the marital satisfaction scale go up.

But sometimes after the conference, suddenly it comes out that one of their spouses was betraying them.

They were in adulterous relationship.

So we looked at those spiritual satisfaction scale of that person and the satisfaction scale maritally.

And the marital satisfaction scale dropped.

And it should, because they've been betrayed.

No satisfaction.

But the spiritual satisfaction doing what they do unto Jesus Christ stayed up.

And that's when I realized the conservative Christian community got it.

Early on, Sarah and I knew this was our main message.

But would it play in Peoria, as they say?

And it played in Peoria.

There are a lot of mature believers out there who, once they hear this, they have new hope.

It's like they just, you know, divorce is not an option.

They're just not leaving.

But they've given over to the fact that they're always going to be unhappy.

And suddenly they realize, wait a minute, I can touch the very heart of Christ.

Wait a minute.

This is what's going to cause him to say, well done, good and faithful servant.

This is the key.

I want more.

But hey, I am not here just spinning wheels every day.

I can touch the heart of Christ.

So good.

So good.

Okay, so obviously a big topic you talk about in your book, and it's a big area that, you know, marriages need to work on, improve, is communication.

So what would you just.

I mean, there's so much I know, but what maybe are some key points or things that we can consider or try to, you know, tools that we can look at.

Well, that's the second section of the verse, the first section.

There are three sections, the upward, and then the second section is the outward, the interpersonal dynamics.

And then the third is this inward, this self awareness, the emotional intelligence issue that we need to bring to the table.

But the second area of the interpersonal clarity is that chapter.

And it's not more talking, it's mutual understanding.

Through the years, people said the key to marriage is communication.

I say, well, I know why you're saying that, but actually it's not.

You can speak perfect German and your spouse speaks perfect Spanish, but if you don't speak the other's vocabulary, you can speak poetically in prose.

And every German speaking person would say, that was the clearest, most powerful, persuasive set of comments I've ever heard.

But their spouse speaks Spanish, so they're completely in the dark on what you just said and vice versa.

Now that's a drastic illustration, but it illustrates something that's powerful.

When we're in a foreign country and we're trying to ask the directions of the train station, and the person doesn't speak our language, we just repeat ourselves louder.

Yeah.

All right.

And that's what happens in marriage.

We start getting louder.

Now, if she speaks pink and he speaks blue, if she has a love language and he has a respect language, we need to learn a few vocabulary words of the other person.

So one of the things I do in that chapter is talk about the importance of mutual understanding.

And one of the points that we made earlier in this conversation is you have to come to a point where you realize she has goodwill.

Otherwise you're going to interpret all of her words through an agenda that she's all about just trying to diss you, that her whole mission is to just show you disrespect and dishonor you, and no one talks to you the way she does.

So if you conclude that you're going to be absolutely convinced you're right, but you're absolutely wrong and you're not filtering this through the right thing.

And so you're going to think she has one mission when she communicates to me, and that's to point out to me that I can never be good enough and that I'm inadequate in her sight and she doesn't respect me.

And my statement to every man in 90% of the cases, that's just untrue.

That's not our mission at all.

And if you don't understand then how to interpret her words, you're going to interpret it through your blue language.

You're going to interpret it through your respect talk to your honor code, and you're going to be in complete disbelief because no one talks to you the way she does.

And so you're going to be convinced you're right, though you don't want to be right.

You just know that you are.

And you're sick and tired of this, but you completely misread this situation, and if you misinterpret it, you're not going to have healthy communication.

So in that chapter, I unpack, how do we then come to a point of mutual understanding with each other so that we ultimately then communicate in ways that the other understands or we understand them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's obviously, obviously, having been married 27 or 27 years of summer, you know, I totally get it.

Right.

Because there are times, even the other night, my husband and I were talking about something, and, you know, I'm saying one thing, but he's.

In other words, the point is, it was the same thing.

My intent was one thing, and his thought on it was very different, but it was the same thing.

We were coming at it from our language, but not from what was each of ours intent or what was behind it.

Right.

And so no.

And of course, eventually we dropped it because it wasn't really the time to talk about it.

And it wasn't even something, as it often isn't.

It wasn't something spurgeon or important.

Right.

That's probably how it often is.

But then to your point, when you were.

When I reflected on it later, it was like, oh, well, what was behind his.

His thought on that?

Right.

Because my intent was to con and more connection with our sons and him and doing something different.

But once again, I was trying to put something on him.

Not.

Not purposely, but do you know what I mean?

I was.

No, that's exactly right.

No, that's exactly right.

Yes.

That's why, like you said, it's often.

That's.

That's how it is, you know, if you're not careful and if you don't say, well, is the.

Is their intent good or what?

What do they mean?

Because if it's just the words.

Yeah.

Often, you know, in a marriage, you can.

It is.

It's like two planes flying different levels, you know, so absolutely makes no sense that we have to understand more.

Well, in the next chapter deals with harmonization.

And one of the points we make is same team, same goal, different plays.

Same team, same goal, different place.

And to this very point we're making here, we have to remind ourselves that we're allies, not enemies, that we're friends, not foes, that we're on the same team, we're not opponents.

Because we're going to look at, in the case of, let's say, parenting and disciplining, let's say of a teen boy, you know, if your husband has the gift of exhortation, you have the gift of mercy.

Let's just take that as an illustration or somebody out there listening.

He's going to be more of a disciplinarian.

His own spiritual gifting calls him into that.

She's got a gift of mercy, plus that maternal.

So she's going to lean toward the mercy side.

Neither one are wrong.

They're just different shades of right, which we talk about in the book as well.

But we've got to come to a point where we remind each other, we both have the same goal here and we're on the same team.

We want what's best for our son.

We want what's best for him.

We just happen to Differ with maybe how that is going to be played out.

And if we don't remind ourselves that we're on the same team, having the same goal, same set of values.

I talk in that chapter that we have 27 major common values and we need to remind ourselves often then these tensions flare up because we are looking at how we're going to go about that and that becomes the point of contention.

And then somehow we get into this argument where we attack the other as wrong when the truth is we have the same aim, we have the same virtues.

Yeah.

Just a different means to get there sometimes.

Right.

Or the thought of a different means.

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay, so what would you say as we start moving towards the end of the episode?

What would you say would be maybe one or two things we haven't discussed yet that you would just like to share with the listeners about these light bulb moments of marriage?

Well, again, I think it's important that we don't necessarily need more effort.

We need more light.

And this idea of.

Of getting insight on the goodwill issue, for instance, or seeing again, the front side strengths and not just focus on the backside weaknesses.

She may be sanguine and loving, which we were attracted to.

Now she's talking with everybody when you want to go.

And we end up resenting the very thing that we were attracted to.

It's so important.

Same thing with spiritual gifting, same thing with upbringing.

There are so many conflicts that arise when both have good will.

And if we can land on that based on 1 Corinthians 7, 33 and 34, doesn't mean that the conflict isn't going to be there.

Partly.

Iron sharpens iron, so one brother sharpens another.

And that the Lord intended pink and blue to come together to discover purple solutions.

Purple is the color of royalty, the color of God.

Husband, wife together reflect his image, and husband and wife together will discover his purposes better.

And we don't really believe that.

We just think that our spouse is disagreeing with us because for whatever reason, they're stupid, we're right, they're wrong, and they should go along with us instead of saying, wait a minute, maybe as we discuss this, we're going to have some heated fellowship.

But maybe there's a third option that's going to emerge from this, a creative alternative that not only satisfies our individual longings, we actually come up with a decision that's even better and we both are happy.

And the end results and the outcome are incredible.

But see, we don't believe that Kristen and that's what we're up against.

And I challenge people.

You've got to revisit this.

Because what happens when these conflicts arise, we immediately there's friction, but we don't see this as God's intent to come up with a better alternative.

I mean, I talk in 1 Corinthians 7:4, God says, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.

That's about sexual intimacy, emotional intimacy.

In the bedroom.

In the bedroom.

Both have final say.

And I said to the Lord in prayer, lord, you can't have final say.

No organization can operate with both people having final say.

So on Tuesday night, does he decide they're going to be sexually intimate and she decides they're not going to be.

Or when they're 70s, does he decide they're not going to be sexually intimate and she decides they are going to be sexually intimate?

I said, lord, who decides?

And the inaudible voice, I didn't hear voices said, yes.

And that's why I said, lord, have you designed trouble based on what you later say in 1st Corinthians 7:28?

If you marry, have not sinned, but you will have trouble?

Yes, but we've got to frame it from the goodwill standpoint in verse 33 and 34.

But here's the deal.

Many of us are in the center of God's will on Tuesday night when we're having a conflict over whether we will or will not be sexually intimate.

And that is in the center of God's will.

We're not outside of his will unless we get sinful and carried away and start throwing lamps at each other.

That that honest difference of opinion is rooted in God's design of us, and he intends for us to negotiate that and coming up with an agreement that's mutual, that we both say, yeah, that works for me, but we don't have the tools, the skill, the knowledge to do that.

And so part of why I'm writing this book and I'm also writing another one with Harper Collins called the Win Win Marriage.

Giving people the knowledge and skill, and you don't need a who to navigate those moments so that they don't blow up in your face and instead realize we're right in the center of God's will.

And the Lord intends for us to have this conversation not from the standpoint that my position is the only position of healthy self interest and anything you have is unhealthy self interest.

And it's selfish.

No, no, you don't frame it that way unless you're wanting one wants to sell the kids for their cocaine habit.

This is not a moral issue.

This is a gray area, clashing preference issue that the Lord intends for us to negotiate.

It doesn't minimize the importance, but it challenges us to realize that we're not here to judge the others wrong.

But it's contributing to the wisdom of a decision that ultimately is going to bring both of us happiness.

Yeah, absolutely.

It makes so much sense.

And like you said, it is.

It's so much a marriage is about.

Like you said, it's a compromise, if you will.

And I don't mean a negative compromise.

But you're having to discuss or decide, right.

What are we going to do here in this moment or for this, you know, whatever it is you're walking through at that moment, whether it's intimacy or whether it's parenting or whatever it might be, right.

You're.

You're trying to come up with a solution, like you said, and if, if you're fortunate in that moment, you're going to come up with one that's even better than either of you thought, as you mentioned before.

So.

That's right.

So.

Illustration on that.

There was a TV program called Designing for the Sexes.

And if I recall it correctly, she wanted all traditional in an interior design.

All traditional.

He wanted all contemporary.

And I thought there's just no way.

Yeah, right.

This idea of third alternative, creative alternative, third option, just no way.

But this designer set up one room with traditional, but he put a contemporary piece in the center of that room and put light on it.

And in the contemporary room, he put one traditional piece in the center and put light on it.

And the contrast with the contemporary compared to the traditional caused the traditional to pop and stand out by contrast even more.

And the husband was happy that that contemporary piece was there.

And she was elated because she could even see the traditional more same thing in the other room.

And I'm looking at this.

And so both of them got 80% and were happier than if they got 100%.

And this is what I call Kingdom math.

And we don't believe in Kingdom math.

Even the word compromise that you use, people think, well, the only way we're going to be happy is if we both sacrifice enough that we're equally unhappy, rather than believe that there's a creative alternative here that actually brings more joy to us.

But we don't believe that.

But my win win book, that's going to be coming out next year is addressing this very idea that there's kingdom, math, and God didn't intend for Tuesday night to end up in fights.

He didn't intend for the mutual authority that you both have to end in fights.

He intended for you to come to an agreement, which Paul talks about in verse five, an agreement that you both find that works.

In fact, that works even better.

And what we don't believe that.

And that's why I say I think we have a crisis of faith, not a crisis of marriage.

Absolutely.

Okay, just any last words you want to share before you share then, how people can find out about the book and your conference and everything else?

Well, I think, you know, just loveandrespect.com our website.

We have a lot of free information there that I would love for them to weigh in on and and consider loveandrespect.com all spelled out L O V E A N D R E S P E C T. But yes, this book is available.

I would love for people to read the Light Bulb Moments, all of these testimonies.

It's just packed with testimonies of people who wrote and told us, hey, it just came in a moment and they pivoted and it was like they had no belief that that could happen.

And that's why they wrote me, because they were in stunned disbelief but were so overjoyed that they had to tell me.

So good.

All right.

So yes, once again, the book is called Light Bulb Moments in Marriage.

And thank you so much for coming on and joining us today, sharing so much wisdom on marriage and about the biblical, you know, plan for marriage and just how can we all just show up and have better marriages the way God intends us to?

By just following and understanding better how he designed us to be, you know, another with another one in marriage.

So thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Kristin.

Once again, thanks for listening.

And if you're not already getting my weekly Faith Friday emails, I'd love for you to get those in your inbox.

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