Marriage in the Middle - Dorothy Littell Greco

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Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. When you hear the word midlife, many immediately think crisis, but it doesn't have to be that way. There will be crises, there will be losses, but we don't have to spin out. We don't have to fall apart.

And in fact, I think that the challenges, the losses and the crises actually can give us the opportunity to recalibrate and to refocus our lives. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Our guest today believes that the stresses and challenges of midlife can really be hard on a marriage, but midlife can also become an opportunity to grow together and truly become one. Dorothy Littel Greco will join us. Our featured resource today is her book, Marriage in the Middle, Embracing Midlife Surprises, Challenges and Joys. I love that title. And Gary, I think you're really going to resonate with our topic today.

What do you think? Well, I do, Chris. I'm a little beyond the middle life toward the end of the book, but I certainly remember the middle years and I'm anticipating a few more. So yeah, I am excited about this because I in my office encounter a lot of folks in the middle of life who are really wrestling with real issues. And this book deals with real issues. So I'm excited about our conversation today.

And there's a lot of hope here today. I hope you'll listen carefully, especially if you're in the middle of some struggle in midlife and especially with your marriage. Dorothy Littel Greco is a writer and photographer who lives outside of Boston, or I could say Boston, the author of Making Marriage Beautiful. Dorothy and her husband lead marriage workshops and retreats, speak at conferences nationwide and have been helping couples create and sustain healthy marriages for more than 25 years.

You can find our featured resource linked at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Again, it's the book Marriage in the Middle. Well, Dorothy, welcome to Building Relationships.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Before we get into the subject today of marriage in the middle, how about telling us your story? You know, how did you and your husband meet and then move into having a marriage ministry? Christopher and I met at Boston University. We were in the same college, the College of Communication, and we also attended the same InterVarsity group, which at that time was very tiny. I think we had about 15 people, and that gave us the opportunity to develop a deep friendship.

We were both trying to figure out, you know, what does it look like to be an artist and to follow Jesus? Christopher is a musician and a playwright, and I've worked as a photographer for 35 years now, and that friendship continued for four to five years before we started dating. Round one of our relationship was quite difficult.

We are both very opinionated and very strong-willed individuals. This ended in a broken engagement, and then after two years of not speaking to each other, one day when he was at work, he felt this little nudge from the Holy Spirit, essentially asking him to consider if it was possible that he had made a mistake. So then he re-initiated with me. A year later we were married, much to the consternation of some of my friends, and we will celebrate 30 years together in a few months. The two of us have always been very intentional about how we pursue Jesus, and we believe that the gospel is meant to change the whole of who we are and to help us become more Christ-like. So three or four years into our marriage, we began doing long-term healing and discipleship programs in our local church, and gradually this began to include premarital and marriage classes and workshops. And then 10 years ago, when I started writing full-time, marriage and family issues became one of the topics that I focused on. So walking with others, serving others in this way, has really always been part of our marriage.

Well, that's quite a journey. I hope some of the singles who are listening today and maybe have gone through a broken engagement just keep their ears open. Maybe there's hope, okay?

Don't give up yet. Of course, our topic today is on the mid-years of marriage, but I know that we have a lot of single adults who listen to the program as well. So thanks for sharing a little bit of your story. As Andrea said when we began the program, many associate the word mid-life with the word crisis. Mid-life crisis. And that can be true, but it doesn't have to be true, right?

That's correct. The term mid-life crisis was coined back in the 60s, and there were a lot of national crises going on then in the United States. And as that often happens, we create words or terms that help us to define our world. And I think in my experience, there's two types of crises. There's the self-induced crises, which come from poor choices that we make or habitual sin patterns like addictions or holding onto resentment. And then there's the crisis not of our own making, similar to what we're seeing now across the globe with COVID. I think it's absolutely true that many of us or perhaps most of us will experience some kind of crises during mid-life, but I don't think that they have to be the stereotypical mid-life crisis that's often depicted by a 45 to 50-year-old man having an affair with somebody in their 20s.

That tends to be about somebody who's unwilling to suffer and face their own mortality, somebody who has not done their spiritual work. So things will be hard in mid-life. There will be crises. There will be losses. But we don't have to spin out. We don't have to fall apart. And in fact, I think that the challenges, the losses, and the crises actually can give us the opportunity to recalibrate and to refocus our lives.

Yeah. Can you explain mid-life? It's a common term, but what do you mean by mid-life? Well, officially mid-life encompasses the ages between 40 and 65, which of course is not really mid-life because not many of us are going to live to 130, right? But apart from the chronology, I think that it includes massive shifts and changes both internally and externally, many of which we have very little control over.

And you know, we can talk more about those as we go along. Well, what are some of the different challenges and stresses that may adversely affect us, or at least are challenged for us? I guess maybe the most universal challenge is the physical and physiological changes that for the most part are out of our control. You know, menopause for women and andropause for men.

And honestly, when I started writing this book, I wasn't even familiar with the word andropause. So now I know that that in fact is a thing for men. And while taking care of ourselves unequivocally should help us to navigate these physical changes, we can't avoid menopause or andropause. You know, no matter what we do, we can become a vegetarian or a triathlete, but we cannot avoid those kind of mid-life changes that our bodies go through. And it's also fairly common during mid-life that depression spikes.

I think that it's during the 40 to 48 range that depression rates are the highest, and they're higher for women than for men. Then the second stress that's worth mentioning is our changing caregiving roles. If we're parents, I know not everybody is, but if we're parents, we're transitioning to having less control. We're handing over more autonomy to our kids.

I don't think that we're less involved, but I think that we're involved in very different ways. And that it's the opposite with our parents, who probably either didn't need us or only needed us minimally until this season, and then their need for us can increase significantly. The number three thing that I would mention is that we do all experience multiple losses during this timeframe. You know, our parents will pass away. Most of the time that happens when we're in mid-life. Our kids will move on and possibly move away. Though, obviously in this COVID season, I think the opposite thing is happening.

We're seeing a lot of kids come back home. Friendships can crumble. We may have to put some of our dreams to rest.

Those are all some of the losses that we can experience during this timeframe. And then there can be a lot of professional shifts. Ageism in the workplace is a very real thing. So my husband and I have watched multiple friends be let go after stellar careers, simply because they were over 50.

And from the company's perspective, they cost too much. And that kind of a shift can be incredibly disorienting, not to mention raise all kinds of financial concerns. And then finally, the fifth thing that I would mention is that we may find ourselves wrestling with our spiritual beliefs, particularly if life has not gone the way we hoped or imagined. And that might look like doubt or malaise or anger or apathy or just saying, you know, I'm done with church. But we are finding more and more people who seem to be experiencing those kinds of spiritual issues during this timeframe. I can see a number of our listeners nodding their head as you go down that litany, because that's where they are. And that's what they're facing, you know.

And I remember going through a lot of that in the middle years of my life and my marriage. Now, how has the pandemic impacted all of this? I think it's ramped everything up, right? You know, you just think about one component, unemployment. I think when we started, last time I read, when we started the year 2020, an unemployment rate was quite low in the United States, something like 3.5 or 3.6.

And in April, it was up to like 14.7. You know, as of last month, 27 million Americans are un or underemployed, which is just, you know, incredible to think about the amount of people who are now in a very precarious situation. Health issues, fears about our health, sky high.

And we don't know, we won't know for sure until a year or two after some long-term studies have been done. But it seems like that the pandemic is having an adverse impact on some marriages, not all, but on some. And to some extent, how could it not, right, given all the stressors, like trying to school your kids from home while you're working. Normally, you know, one spouse will go out the door in the morning and come home eight to 10 hours later. And that little break can be a sort of reset. And then, you know, we have a breather, we're thankful to see each other at dinner. And now it's like, why are you still here?

Why didn't you go out the door to work yet? So I think overall, in this pandemic season, our powerlessness has increased. And there's so many deeply troubling things that are happening that are not in our domain to fix. So it's inevitable that that's going to affect us.

Dorothy, I had never heard that word. And, you know, I've heard menopause all my life. But I looked it up as you were talking there, forgive me for being distracted and seeing that it's kind of the lower testosterone as you age, you have less testosterone, you have to deal with that because there's depression and weight gain and those other things. And that affects a lot of men who are listening to us today, doesn't it?

It sure does. I mean, it has every bit as much effect as menopause does on women, but it never gets talked about. And I think that that's, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to bring it up is to say, hey, guys, you know, there are some very real reasons why you're having some quite difficult things to deal with alongside of your wives. And that's a section of the book that I think men are going to find very, very helpful, because I think, Chris, there are a lot of men that are not aware of the changes that are going on. Well, they know changes are going on, but they don't connect them. They don't connect the dots. And men are less likely to talk about that stuff than women are.

You know, women are much more likely to sit down and chat with their friends about some of the physiological and physical changes where men, I think, just, you know, it just doesn't happen. Yeah. Before the pandemic, at least, there were a lot of folks who had the concept in their younger years that when they get to midlife, things are going to be very different. They're going to be much better. We're not going to have to give as much attention and effort. You know, the kids are growing and they're going to be leaving the nest and that's going to be wonderful. And so we're going to have more free time. And how realistic is that? Not very.

Sorry. You know, hypothetically, I think that's true, but that's not been our experience. There was, you know, when our kids began the teen years, there was somebody at church who said, oh, you know, this is the time frame when your parenting is done and you can really just let go of all the responsibilities. And now, you know, that we're through that, I think, wow, I feel sorry for their kids because I don't think that that's true at all. As anybody who is parenting teens knows, parenting teenagers takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. They're trying to figure out who they are, what they believe, if and where they're going to go to college. They're having all the stress of driver's tests and SATs and then they have all their own relational drama, right? So our experience was that there was a lot of conflict during those teen years and conflict with a 16-year-old is way more intense than conflict with a six-year-old, right? We can't simply lay down the because I said so card anymore.

We have to seriously up our game and really listen to them and draw them out and hear what they're trying to say and validate the things that are concerns to them. I can give you a little snippet from our life. Eight years ago, which is after the story that opens the book, happened. Our oldest son was off at college and he decided that he wanted to get married at age 19. I was 30 when I got married, so this was way out of my comfort zone. Our second son had recently left for college and he was seriously unhappy with his choice. It was talking about within the first couple weeks that he wanted to leave and go someplace else or just drop out. Our youngest son was at home and he was dealing with really painful rejection issues at his school. What that meant for us was we were having ongoing conversations late into the night trying to help them support and navigate what was going on for them. Then in the midst of that, as I referenced in the book, my mother-in-law had passed away after a battle with cancer, but then three other family members all got cancer at the same time. My father, in his final final radiation treatment, fell off the radiation table and broke his leg and then was in the hospital for several weeks and rehabbed for several months. Every other weekend, I would drive five hours down to New Jersey.

I'd either visit him in rehab or when he came home, make a week's worth of food, clean this house, take it to the doctors, and then I would drive back home. I was utterly exhausted and I felt like I was failing in every single domain of my life. I couldn't keep up with my son's needs, with my husband's needs.

I was the parent who never showed up for parent-teacher conferences, and I never even logged into my son's academic portal that year. Christopher and I function well as a team. We have a very strong marriage, but during that time frame, there was very little emotional or physical intimacy.

We just put one foot in front of the other and we got through our days. When that kind of scenario goes on for more than a few months, I think the distance between a husband and wife can become its own source of tension. Any couples who have a special needs child, there is no growing out of that.

That could be what their lives are like. If you have a parent with dementia, the decline might take years and require caregiving from you during that time frame. I think that the middle years are much more intense than we ever anticipated, and they stretch us sometimes to what feels like a breaking point, which makes us really pay attention to the state of our marriage, because if the marriage falls apart, it affects a lot of people. Yeah, and in the midst of all the things that you just described, your relationship with your spouse can be needed more than ever, but as you say, the pressure and the time crunch can cause you not to give attention to the marriage. Well, you know, let's think back a little bit on the U.S. history in terms of, say, 50 years ago. How does midlife today in a marriage and family differ from midlife experiences 50 years ago? Well, when I was doing research for this book, what I learned was that the age for first-time marriage has gone up, the number of children that we are now having in the United States has gone down, and couples tend to be having their children later, and those shifts probably mean that we're still actively caring for our children during the same time that our parents are declining because they lived longer than they did 50 years ago. So I think one of the things that's notable is that there's no single narrative that can define midlife anymore. You know, some couples in this demographic have been married 30 years and others have been married 10 years. Some of my friends were grandparents when they were in their 40s, and I had my last child when I was almost 40. Another change is that I think for various reasons, maybe including that the cost of living has outpaced salary increases, it's common for both spouses to be working outside the home now.

And then there are the relational challenges posed by technology, which could be a conversation in and of itself, right? 50 years ago, we weren't vying with a device for our spouse's attention, so that also is just a huge change. Yeah, so I hear some folks who are a little older saying, oh for the good old days. But at the time, they weren't necessarily all good old days, right? But I think you're exactly right there.

There have been rather dramatic changes over the last 50 years, and making marriage a priority during the mid-years is going to serve you well as you move into the later years. Yes. And we haven't even talked about the whole thing of how many people are in the middle years of life, and they've been divorced, and they're in a second marriage, living as a single, and so that's another whole dynamic, right?

That's correct, yeah. You talk about three character traits that are essential during this time. Tell us what those are and why they're so important. Yes, I speak about malleability, resilience, and engagement, and these three are obviously not the only character traits that we need, but I think that they do play a key role in how we navigate midlife. So in the physical world, a metal's malleability is connected to how much pressure it can withstand without snapping, so gold is much more malleable or flexible than zinc, like you can actually pound gold into a very thin sheet, almost like paper. And as we've been discussing, midlife is a time of sustained pressure, so we exhibit malleability by not snapping or breaking in the face of conflict, health scares, disappointment, etc., and when we remain malleable, sustained stress can actually help us to grow. Then where malleability is the willingness to be stretched and changed, resilience determines how quickly we'll bounce back after something difficult or trying has happened. Cheryl Sandberg, Facebook executive and author, she defined resilience as the strength and speed of our response to adversity, and I love that definition. So resilience is a measure of maturity.

If you think about how a two-year-old responds when they don't get their way, we might have that same level of annoyance or frustration when something doesn't go well, but at 45 or 50, you know, tantrums are very unbecoming. So we need to be adults and we need to exhibit resilience. And then finally engagement, which is one could guess, simply means being active, paying attention rather than checking out or giving up. I think that when we exhibit these three traits, even when the world seems like it's spinning out of control or we're exhausted, it allows us to stay in the game, which is really important because the people in our lives really need us.

Yeah. You know, when we talk about what you've just discussed earlier, the parenting of our children at whatever age they are when we meet, when we are in midlife, and then our parents and our caring for our parents, many, many, many couples in the midlife are experiencing all of that. And you talked about the time pressures and the emotional pressures. So, and sometimes you feel like these things are out of your control.

You can't control what's going on in your parents' life physically or emotionally or otherwise. Are you saying that really focusing in on these three things is what allows us to be able to cope as we go through this season? I think that they will help us to cope. And, you know, as I mentioned at the top there, obviously there's other character traits that are important too, like empathy, right?

That's huge in this time period. We need so much empathy and understanding from our spouse. But I think if we can focus on being malleable, resilient, and engaged, that that will definitely help us to press through some of these key issues.

Yeah. Well, often we're disappointed, I think, in the middle of life because things haven't worked out the way we thought they would work out. But can these things that happen and the pressures and all, can they be helpful? That is, can we learn from those experiences?

And if so, what are the dynamics that help us do that? I think that we can learn from them. You know, some of the readers have told me that Chapter 5, which focuses on disappointment, was the hardest one for them to read because Isabella's story is really so very painful. You know, her marriage was not at all what she wanted it to be.

And despite work and prayer, a lot of effort on her part, it never succeeded. And it's, you know, that's a very sobering, I think, story for us to read. But I think that disappointments can help us grow and mature, provided that we stay humble and we pay attention to what they're trying to teach us. Disappointment is actually, I think, a tricky emotion because it tends to hide behind other, easier-to-identify feelings like anger or hopelessness or fear or frustration. And the disappointments we face in life, at any point in life, can be connected to mundane things. You know, like we go away on vacation and it rains every day.

Well, that's disappointing. They could be connected to having to navigate our spouse's long-term health issues, which limit maybe our recreational options or potentially reduce our household income. And then on the other extreme, marital disappointments might be due to something highly consequential, like discovering that your spouse has an addiction or that they no longer want to follow Jesus. Disappointments point to areas where our expectations have been dashed. And we all come into marriage with many expectations about everything from division of household chores to number of children to frequency of sex. And some of these expectations are really important and godly, like fidelity, honesty, etc.

And we have to fight for them. You know, those are not ones that we can just say, oh, well, it didn't work out. But often, I think our expectations emerge out of our family of origin and our cultural experiences. And they're more connected to our preferences, meaning the ways that we like things to be done or the ways that we want to be treated.

So I'll give you an example. When I came into marriage, I was very much a product of the Disney movies of the 60s and 70s. And if you can think back to that time, the heroines were mostly passive. They did a lot of singing and cleaning and waiting, right? Think about Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, it's all like same, same, same, same, same. They sang, they cleaned, they waited.

That really doesn't work for me. So but without being aware of it, I had all these expectations about what romance was supposed to look like. And I moralized the expectations, meaning that I assumed my version was right and his version was wrong. So when we carry that kind of moralizing energy connected to our expectations, there's bound to be conflict. And boy, did we have conflict. So in our 10th year, we fought for months about my frustrations regarding a perceived lack of romance.

And it was really ugly. And finally, Christopher had to put his foot down and essentially say, your expectations are not realistic based on who I am. You know, I'm not Prince Charming, but I am faithful. And I do love you.

And I want you to receive my love rather than judging it as an accolade. And, you know, then of course, I had to repent, I had to apologize. And Christopher and I had to work together to help me form godly reality based expectations.

And I think that these kind of come to Jesus moments happen more frequently in midlife. And they can lead us to what I now call holy resignation, which essentially means that when we have these moments of reckoning, and we understand, oh, that might never change, how am I going to respond to that? And then we purposefully decide, you know what, I'm staying, I'm not going anywhere. Even if you never change, I'm not leaving you. I'm going to choose to love you, despite all of the limitations and the disappointments. That is really powerful and incredibly redemptive. So, but obviously, we have to figure out what our disappointments want to teach us.

And it's often not a one time thing, but it's more of an ongoing process. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Find us online at FiveLoveLanguages.com. We have some great resources for you. A tool to assess your love language. You can hear a podcast of the program and find out about our featured resource. It's the book by Dorothy Littel Greco, Marriage in the Middle, Embracing Midlife Surprises, Challenges and Joys. Just go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Dorothy, when you talked about the Disneyfication of your life, and the first thing I thought was, yeah, you don't have your Prince Charming, but everybody wants a fairy godmother to bibbidi bobbidi boo and make everything.

And it didn't, it didn't happen. What I hear you saying that your husband said to you is, I want to love you the way that you want to be loved. I have my limitations, but I am for you.

I'm here for you. I want to, it wasn't like he was resistant to what you were talking about. He wanted to love you. He just couldn't measure up. Is that what you're saying?

Yes, I think it is. Again, my expectations of who he was and how he would love me were completely unrealistic based on who he is. He's a pragmatist. So romance for him just doesn't cut it. It's too sentimental.

Maybe that's a particular thing about Disney movies is that they are very sentimental. So his love is genuine. It's true. It's solid. It's steady.

He has never wavered. And I think that what he was calling me to, and it was a rebuke, and I still very clearly remember the conversation, and I was weeping because there was, the power of the Holy Spirit came and convicted me that he was right, that I was focusing on his weaknesses rather than being grateful for the many gifts that he gave me. So that was, it was a sobering moment, but it was absolutely a turning point in our marriage and a very important one.

But you could define what you just described as, well, and so I gave up. I didn't, you know, I gave up on our, on the romance that I've always wanted in our marriage. And my guess is that that holy resignation that you're talking about led you to a deeper intimacy than you had before.

Absolutely it did. And that's why the word holy is so important before resignation. It wasn't a giving up.

It wasn't a, oh, well, I guess I'll just never get this. And then sort of descending into, you know, whatever bitterness or resentment that was saying, okay, this is the person I chose to marry. This is the person I committed my life to. So what does it look like to love him based on who he is today?

Not who, not who he might be in 10 years or 20 years, who he is in this moment, because I feel like that's what Christ is calling us to. Yeah, I think what you're describing there is what many, many couples really need to be hearing, because there's a sense in which none of us are ever going to live up to all of the visions that the other person has in mind for us. And that doesn't mean that we can't change, because we can, and we can have significant growth as we share our desires, but there is a place for reality in a relationship. I want to pick up on one of the other illustrations that you just mentioned briefly, and that is when your spouse tends to draw back from God or from church. And this is particularly painful for a Christian who sees their spouse drawing back from God.

How do you respond to that when that begins to happen in a relationship? You know, one of my best friends is in the midst of this. I would say, in my opinion, this is probably one of the most difficult things that a couple has to face.

You know, we know that we can't control our spouse, that the choices that they make are their choices. And so then we have the opportunity to decide, are we going to keep loving? Are we going to keep praying? Are we going to keep hoping for the Lord to break in? Are we going to judge them?

Are we going to try to control them? Which I think is tends to, at least that tends to be my tendency. I'm not going to put that on anybody else, but I know that that's my proclivity, is to try to change the other person. So there's a lot of finding a balance of holding on to the Lord for the hope that you need on a daily basis, while continuing to love, and at the same time, you know, having an open hand and saying, obviously, you know, this is your relationship, not mine. You have to think about it.

You have to decide if this is something that you want, or if it's something that you want to let go of. So I hear you saying, don't condemn the person for the direction they're moving, but certainly be praying for them, and loving them, even though they're not, even though that deeply hurts you, and deeply pains you. Yes, and it may be that, you know, going to counseling, either together or individually, having somebody that, you know, the spouse who decided to stay in the faith has a place to process, because I would imagine that there are many, many, many things that are just so excruciatingly painful that you might not be able to talk about on an ongoing basis with your spouse, the one who has withdrawn.

Yeah. You also discuss in the book the concept of idolatry, which I wouldn't necessarily be looking for that word in a book called marriage, but what do you mean by that, and what are examples of that? I think that one of the key reasons I wanted to include a beat on idolatry is that idolatry pulls us off course, and at this point in our lives, we don't have time for that. Like, we really have to stay on topic.

We have to stay focused at this point in our life. You know, and it's easy for us as believers to recall, you know, examples in the Old Testament, like when the Israelites crafted a golden cow and literally bound down to it, and then to say, oh, well, you know, that's something that happened in ancient times, and it's not a concern to us, but that would be a mistake, because we are all vulnerable to the pull of idols. We all worship something or someone. So an idol is anything that we look to to depend on to give us what we think we need, and idols give us the illusion of control.

They, of course, don't really give us control, but they give us the illusion of control. So Americans, for example, I think are particularly vulnerable to idols connected to capitalism, financial success, and ownership, because that's the air that we breathe. So we put our trust in our 401s, or our jobs, or having a successful church, or a large social media following, and we assume that if we do everything that the idol demands of us, we'll be happy and we'll be secure. But of course, we won't, because idols always overpromise and underdeliver.

They're kind of like infomercials in that regard. Idols are unrelenting in their demand of us, and no matter what we give them, they're always going to want more. In reality, our ultimate satisfaction in life comes not even from marriage, right, but from God.

So even if the marriage is in real, real, real trouble, if we're with God, we're still going to do the right thing in the midst of a troubled marriage. Yes, and could I just add one little beat about the idolatry thing? Because I think that oftentimes we don't recognize when it's got a grip on us. We can learn to recognize where idols are present in our lives by paying attention to what we think about, what we're devoted to, how we spend our time, and how we spend our money. How do we try to control things? Jealousy, anger, and envy are three feelings that can help us to identify the idols.

When we see them, you know, we know what to do when sin shows up in our life, right? We confess that we repent, and then we do the hard work of uprooting the idolatrous behaviors and choosing to be content with the lives that we have. Yeah, we discussed earlier the whole issue of sexual intimacy in the middle years, but we come back to that, and how does that affect the relationship? What are some of the patterns in the midlife in this area, and how does the rest of life, that is the non-sexual part of life, how is it affected? How does the rest of life affect the sexual part of life?

Well, I don't think any of us leave in the kitchen on the counter what has happened, you know, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. before we go upstairs to bed. Like, all the interactions that we've had together, not just on that day, but historically, follow us into the bedroom, right? So, how we're treating each other, how we're loving each other, how we're patient or impatient with each other, how we respect each other, that all comes into play when we get into bed together. It's not just plumbing, right?

It's not about technique. It's about how much we trust each other, how much we respect each other, how kind and gentle we are with each other. So, hopefully, by this point in the marriage, you know, if couples are doing their spiritual and relational work, there's a tremendous bond that's been formed. There's a lot of trust, and that should, again, you know, lead to deeper and richer sexual intimacy. Christopher and I have definitely found that to be true, that despite some of the bumps that we've experienced in the past five or six years due to menopause and andropause, that we're enjoying each other more in the bedroom. We're more relaxed.

We can laugh more. We trust each other more fully. So, the notion that, you know, it's only the 20-year-olds with the defined abs who are having good sex, I think that's just nonsense. I think what the Lord, the way that He's created us, the longer we're married, the more trust we have, the more enjoyable our intimate life will be. So, define that for me. What is good sex?

Yes, I suppose it would be helpful to clarify, so thank you for asking that. I think that good sex should be defined by the following eight characteristics, and at the top of the list, I would put exclusivity. One of the things that differentiates a marriage from all other relationships is that we don't share our bodies with anybody else.

Two would be oneness. Good sex should connect us. We want to feel closer to each other after we've made love than we did before, and if you think about it this way, the proximity of our bodies mirrors or illustrates the proximity of our souls. Number three would be that good sex is mutual. The hope is that both spouses are willing and eager to be intimate and that both partners initiate because initiation demonstrates interest. And four would be that it's sacrificial, and I think of this in two ways.

As Christians, we are supposed to consider each other's needs above our own. That mindset, I think, should also apply in the bedroom, so when we're engaged in the act of lovemaking, we should be eager to please our spouse, and curiously, that in and of itself will bring us joy. And second, I'll give you an example of how sex can be sacrificial from my own marriage. There are times when Christopher wants to be intimate, and I'm either too tired or in too much pain from the fibromyalgia. Saying yes to him on those nights is an act of sacrifice. I think the first kind of sacrifice should be normative, but if the second happens on a regular basis, you know, if one partner feels like, oh, you know, I'll make the sacrifice and be intimate with you, that could be an indication that there's some work that the couple needs to do. And number five would be that good sex honors and respects.

So we want to honor each other's likes and dislikes. There shouldn't be any kind of coercion and nothing that demeans or dishonors our spouse when we're together in bed. Six would be that good sex is vulnerable. Genesis 2 talks about Adam and Eve being naked and unashamed, and I think that that's one of the goals of marital sex, that we would have no secrets and there would be no barriers between us. Number seven, few of us think about sex in this way, but I also believe that it's meant to be healing and restorative. When all of these other characteristics are in place, sex communicates both acceptance and delight, and both of these things can bring healing to any of our places of insecurity or shame, perhaps even more so as we age. And finally, number eight would be pleasurable. Now, God didn't have to design our body so that sex would bring us so much pleasure, but he did. And I'm really grateful that he did. If it's not routinely pleasurable, then I would make sure that there's no physical issues and then go back to the beginning of the list and see, are there any characteristics that are missing?

So that's my extensive list. And I'm thinking that communication between the husband and the wife about this part of their marriage is an absolutely necessary necessity if we're going to have a mutual sense of satisfaction. It's true, Gary, particularly during midlife, because as we go through menopause and andropause, you know, our bodies just don't react the way that they used to, and that takes another level of communication, another level of sensitivity and tenderness, and sometimes patience as well. Yeah, I hear a lot of middle-aged men complaining about this part of the marriage, you know, that my wife is not responsive, etc., etc., but they're not talking to their spouse about it. You know, they might talk to a counselor, they might talk to a buddy, you know, but they're not talking to their spouse about it. What would you say to a husband in that situation? I think that you have to take the risk of having those conversations, of being able to say, I really long to be sexually intimate with you on a more regular basis.

What are the barriers? What are the things that I could do that might help you to be more interested? You know, are there any places in our marriage where you have felt hurt, where you feel like you can't trust me, and that's causing you to hold back?

How can we discuss this as a couple and move forward? Because I would agree with them. I think that it is important. It's easy to neglect it as we age, you know, particularly because we're tired. I mean, that's really one of the biggest limiting factors for us right now is, you know, it's got to happen before 9 p.m. because other than that, if it doesn't happen before 9 p.m., it's just too late. So I would encourage any husbands who feel this to not give up, but also to go in with a great deal of humility and say, you know, is there anything that you need from me that you're not getting?

Is there any way that I could help you in this area? There's also the flip side of that too, that women want more sexual intimacy with their husbands and their husbands aren't responding. Would you say the same thing to the wife? That's a tough one because every marriage is unique. The whys of an equitable desire probably vary from couple to couple, so I'm not sure that I could answer that question well without first sitting down with the husband and wife and listening to their story.

That said, I can certainly offer some thoughts. First, I would encourage him or her if the dynamic was reversed because it's not always just men who want sex more frequently than their wives. I would encourage him not to give up and not to give into despair because sexual intimacy is a really important aspect of marriage, even as we age.

And the truth is, his ongoing desire might be the main impetus for growth. So if the person who is more interested in sex gives up or turns to pornography, then chances are that the couple won't resolve this issue and they may not grow. When my husband and I are doing pastoral care and one spouse is unhappy about the frequency or the quality of their intimate life, the first thing that we always encourage them to do is make sure that there's no underlying health issues, and that includes mental health, right, because depression can really flatten our libido. Fluctuating hormones during menopause and andropause can cause sexual desire to drop. And as is the case for me, chronic pain also tends to inhibit interest in sex.

So it's important to first consider any of those possibilities. And then we also need to be mindful of our spouse's history. So if your spouse is a trauma survivor or if they've experienced any type of sexual abuse and have not done much therapeutic work, I would consider if this might be helpful. And I would also encourage the husband to spend some time in prayer asking God to show him if he played any part in his wife's disinterest, and that could be as simple as having unrealistic expectations about frequency. He might also want to ask the kind of questions like, have I ever rushed things because good sex for a woman should be slow?

And that's particularly true as we age. Has there ever been a breach of trust? And if that's the case, he would probably need to apologize and ask for forgiveness. And then finally, I think I would encourage him to ask his wife if she would be open to having conversations, and nope, conversations plural, not just a one-off, perhaps with a professional counselor, but not necessarily. If this has been a long-standing pattern, it might take months of conversations and lots of patience before there's movement. And in the context of these conversations, one needs to have curiosity, care, humility, vulnerability, and empathy, right? So then rather than asking, you know, something flatly like, why aren't you interested in having sex more often, or giving his spouse any kind of emotional consequences, he should try something along the lines of, I so enjoy being intimate with you, and I really miss our times together.

Is there anything I've done or said that has been off putting to you? Or maybe what do you need from me in the bedroom that you're not receiving? Or is there anything I could do that might spark more interest in our intimate life? And if after approaching it from all of these angles, their intimate life still lacks the frequency or the passion that he longs for, then it's up to him again, or her, to store their sexual longings well, and to not hold that against their spouse, but to rather continue to love.

And that's not an easy assignment. But honestly, most women I know would be so grateful grateful if their husbands took this approach with them when they're having difficulties in the bedroom. I think there are a lot of men who haven't talked to their wives.

The communication is not really going very well, really, in any any part of life. This is where reading through a book, like the book, your book we're discussing today, each of them read the same chapter during the week, sit down at the end of the week, and discuss what can we learn from this chapter. It's an easy way to help men and women, for that matter, talk about things that they would not have talked about if they weren't, you know, being exposed to material in the book. So I just want to throw that in for all the guys and gals that are out there that feel like, well, we just can't have conversations.

Well, we can. And, you know, a book is a tool that can help you have those kind of conversations. Yeah, and there's questions at the end of each chapter, too, which should help facilitate those kind of conversations.

Right. You talk in the book also about the importance of community in midlife. Tell us more about that and what you mean by community. Regardless of how long we've been married, community is always important, right? Marriage provides a source of consistent friendship, but no spouse can fulfill all of our relational or emotional needs. So, as an example, Christopher is about as extroverted as they come, and I am, on the opposite scale, introverted. And despite my deep love and respect for him, I just cannot keep up with his need to verbally process. So he really needs to regularly connect with his peers and his co-workers, or I can feel absolutely inundated by the avalanche of words and thoughts that he has. And despite his extroversion, he's very solitary in how he prays.

The way he prays is he goes for long walks and he talks to God the whole time. Now, I love to pray out loud with other people. So early on, this was one of my biggest disappointments, and it was a source of ongoing conflict in part because, again, I moralized my expectations. So when I finally realized that I could just reach out to some of my women friends and pray with them, it was a huge win-win for both of us, right? So I really see friendships and community as the proving ground for love. When we're part of a truly diverse community, we have to figure out, like, what does it look like to love somebody, to respect somebody who's completely different from me, who doesn't vote like me, who likes different songs than I like? And loving those who are different makes us confront our narcissism, our selfishness, our opinions, and then it should help us to love more freely and more fully. And the more we flex that love muscle, the stronger it becomes, which then hopefully will benefit our family. So additionally, I think because of the demands and losses of midlife, we really need to be part of a healthy, grounded community that can help us deal with the midlife challenges. So if the church we attend is dysfunctional, or if it's unable to engage in suffering, like if it just wants to stay on the surface and always sing the happy songs, that's not going to serve us.

It's not going to help us to grieve or to mourn or to suffer well. And I think that it can even make us vulnerable to marital failure. Because if we're in crisis, we don't need somebody telling us to pray more. We need a community that will rally around us, that will bring food, that will pray for us, that will encourage us, that will challenge us, that will say, you know, I've noticed that you two kind of have a little bit of a sarcastic thing happening here.

What's going on with that? And when we have those kinds of relationships that are really honest and truthful and vulnerable, it's going to serve us in a way that we can't even imagine. I am encouraged, Dorothy, by many churches that are having a strong emphasis on small groups within the church, you know, where couples really do get to know each other, really do share their lives with each other.

On the other hand, there are many other churches, and sometimes smaller churches really, who do not have that, you know, church is more the gathered for worship, but they lack those deep relationships with each other. Dorothy, share with the couples who are listening some practical ways to identify underlying issues that are going on. I think growing in self-awareness is probably the most important thing, which means just paying attention to the places or moments when you feel hopeless or stuck or bitter or resentful, and then rather than ruminating on the feeling, like disappointment, discover what is it trying to tell you, right? So we need to look under our feelings and our reactions and try to discern what's happening.

And we can see that in Psalm 139, when King David wrote, Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me, know my anxious thoughts. So if we ask ourselves, why am I routinely frustrated with my spouse? Why is my inner monologue so hopeless?

Why did I criticize him at dinner? When did I start feeling all of this anger or frustration? Then we can begin to recognize patterns and the patterns can lead us back to the source. So doing some form of the daily examine, I think is helpful. And for me, what that means is taking a pause several times during a day, choosing to be still and checking in with the Holy Spirit.

And I'm pretty consistent about doing this at night. It's just a simple prayer. God, how did I do today? Are there any places where I need to apologize or repent? And it's not infrequent that I'll hear something along the lines of, you know, you were a bit harsh with your husband this afternoon. And when I started this practice, I would often be tempted to, you know, either justify or minimize whatever the Holy Spirit brought to me or think, oh, he probably didn't notice that.

Or, oh, I'll tell him in the morning, which of course I never would because I would forget. But when I in the moment faithfully confess and apologize to Christopher, it allows the love to flow between us more freely. And it helps us to keep short accounts. So I think developing more self-awareness and a deeper connection to the Holy Spirit is huge. Paying attention to, are you having the same argument again and again? Because if you are, chances are it's not really about the issue that's on the surface. It's about something that's much deeper. And you might need the help of a counselor to figure out what that is. And then asking each other from time to time, what's working? What's not working?

Where did we go? Of course. How could I improve as your spouse? But don't ask that question unless you really want to hear their answer because that can be a hard one. And then again, I would say having friendships, having people who you give permission to speak into your life.

We have several friends who we have said to them, if you see us going off the rails, if there's something that troubles you, please speak up. Yeah. You know, as we come toward the end of our time, Dorothy, in the book you talk about the concept of telos. What do you mean by that? And why is it so important?

Yeah. It's not a familiar word to many of us. I mean, I had to look it up and really wrestle with it, but it's a Greek word and what it means is fulfillment or the end goal of an intentional process. So our telos is our ultimate destination. It's how we get there and how we treat those who are with us. So essentially it's like a guiding purpose. And, you know, maybe this is an American thing, but we are so success oriented.

You know, we don't think twice about strategizing. How do we save money? How do we plan for retirement?

We have apps that track our fitness goals. We hire people to help us figure out how to advance our careers, but we rarely apply those same principles to our marriage. And I believe that what the Lord is asking us to do is to become marriage visionaries. And part of the key in becoming a marriage visionary is using our imagination. You know, because we're all made in the image of God, we're all creative and imaginative people. And that said, it's often easier for us to be critical and being critical is like the first step in using our imagination. But too often we stop there. Criticism has to move towards being solution oriented where it just becomes unhelpful and hurtful. So I think as couples, if we can imagine where is God taking us?

How is He using us? Because I think every marriage is uniquely poised to serve the greater good. And that doesn't mean that you have to be involved in professional ministry. You could be tutoring ESL kids one night a week. You could be volunteering at the local animal shelter.

You could be inviting friends over for dinner. And to discern your talents, we need to pay attention to where do the two of you come alive? You know, where are you gifted and where are you limited? So for instance, Christopher and I love to have in-depth conversation with folks and we have a high tolerance for people's pain, but we hate power tools.

So it's unlikely that we are ever going to volunteer for a Habitat for Humanity building project. But we love volunteering at the local prison and we love doing marriage coaching. So, you know, part of that is just paying attention. Where do we feel like the most excited? Where do we feel most connected? And another part of it is looking back to see like where has God moved in our lives? What has He done through us?

And I refer to that as stones of remembrance in the book. So I strongly believe that when we chart our telos and we cultivate a dynamic relationship with Jesus, that we will have some of the best marriages on the planet. Well, Dorothy, this has been a delightful conversation. I know that our listeners, especially those who are in the middle years of life and marriage, are going to find not only this program helpful, but going to find this book helpful. So thanks for what you and Christopher are doing with your lives at this juncture and may God continue to give you wisdom in all that you're doing. Thanks for being with us. Thank you so much and thanks for all the work that the two of you do to sustain and help the kingdom of God grow. Once again, the title of our resource is Marriage in the Middle, embracing midlife surprises, challenges, and joys, written by Dorothy Littel Greco. And we have it linked at the website, 5lovelanguages.com. Again, go to 5lovelanguages.com.

Find out how to activate your joy switch in one week. A big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago, in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.