Vertical Marriage

Dave thought he had a great marriage, but Ann saw things differently. Hear their story today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman.

I had stopped looking to Jesus, my Savior, to fill me up with what really matters in life. When you go vertical and find your life through a relationship with Christ, you can come back to your marriage and be a giver rather than a taker. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, a husband and wife detail their marital struggles and reveal the one secret that will change your marriage. Dave and Ann Wilson will join us today from the studios of Family Life Radio and Little Rock to talk about their new book, Vertical Marriage, and it's just in time for Valentine's Day.

Find out more at the website, fivelovelanguages.com. Gary, this is a story that you've heard a lot in your counseling and in your seminars. One spouse thinks everything's pretty much fine. The other is on the brink.

You've heard that before, haven't you? You know, Chris, I remember a couple, you know, I wrote the book, The Four Seasons of Marriage, and we have a little quiz where they take the quiz and it tells them whether they're in a summer marriage, a spring marriage, a fall marriage, or a winter marriage. And this husband said, Dr. Chapman, he said, I took the quiz and it said we were in a summer marriage. He said, my wife took the quiz and it said we're in a winter marriage. He said, which is it? I said, you're in a winter marriage.

If one of you thinks it's winter, it is winter. That's good. I think our guests are going to shed some light on that as well today. Dave and Ann Wilson served together at Kensington Community Church. It's a national multi-campus church that hosts more than 14,000 attendees every weekend. For the past 25 years, they've been featured speakers at Family Life's Weekend to Remember.

They live in the Detroit area where Dave has served as the Detroit Lions chaplain for 33 years. They've written our featured resource. It's Vertical Marriage, The One Secret That Will Change Your Marriage, written along with John Driver.

You can find out more about it at the website, FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Dave and Ann, welcome to Building Relationships. We are glad to be here and we are in a winter marriage.

Wait, what does that mean? Are we? No, we're not anymore. We were. So good to be with you, Gary.

Thank you. Well, Dave, let's go back to that fatal night on your 10th anniversary. What did you think about the marriage and how were the two of you doing at that point?

Well, as you just said, I actually thought our marriage was great. We were celebrating 10 years. We were just getting ready to start our church. I was working with the Detroit Lions in ministry and that was going well. Although we weren't winning football games, we were winning men and women to Christ off the field.

I guess you could say I was a winter chaplain, too, because we didn't win much. But great things were happening in our ministry and I thought the same thing was true about our marriage, so I thought it would be really fun to go out and really, really celebrate 10 years of marriage in a great way. Alann, you had a different idea, right? A different view of the marriage.

I did have a different view. We had two little boys at that time that were four and two, so life was crazy. Dave was traveling with the Lions, starting this church.

He was gone all the time. And when we got married, we really had this vision of we wanted God to use us. We wanted to have this great ministry together. And I kind of felt like Dave was leaving me behind. And I also felt like, wait, we're raising our kids together, but you're never here. And so I was really frustrated. And in my frustration, I think I got angry and resentful. And we were fighting a lot. So when our 10-year anniversary came up and Dave had this great plan for this night out, I was a little skeptical. I was like, ugh, really?

It's kind of late because you haven't been putting any effort into it at all. That's kind of where I was in the marriage. So Dave, when Ann told you that she didn't have feelings for you like she had before, how did you respond to that? Well, in the moment, I didn't at all see it coming. I mean, we had just gone out. You talk about "The 5 Love Languages" . I think I did all five.

That's true. In one evening. It was a remarkable night.

Yeah. So, you know, we had a great meal and I had roses delivered to the table one at a time to talk about each of the 10 years. Anyway, it was a very romantic evening. And I would have told you on a scale of one to 10, our marriage is like a 10.

It's really doing well. And so as we were driving home, we parked in the parking lot where we were about to start this church at this middle school. And I just, to be honest, thought we would end the night making out in the car, you know, going parking.

And that was sort of my surprise plan to Ann. And that's when she said, as I tried to kiss her and she pulled away, I asked what was wrong. And she said, I've lost my feelings for you. And again, I was just shocked.

I was completely, I had no idea. And so then she explained why. And she shared some of the things she already shared today, just that I had been gone and my schedule. And, you know, we were married and even teaching on marriage, but we weren't intimate.

I don't mean, you know, in a sexual way, just in our marriage. It was just I was teaching it. I wasn't living it. And I didn't know it until that night. And so initially I responded like I was going to prove her wrong, that I had been home. I actually reached in the back seat to grab my calendar. Can you believe that? To say, look, I'll show you, you think I've been gone?

I've been home a lot. And here's the amazing thing that happened for me is when I was reaching in the back seat, I sensed the Holy Spirit who lives in my soul and every believer's soul whispered. It was more like a shout. And he said, don't touch your calendar.

Don't defend yourself. So I didn't. I just listened. And the other word I heard from him was shut up. It was that direct. Shut up and listen.

And so I let Ann share what was really going on in her heart. Yeah. We do tend to get defensive, don't we? When a spouse says something like that to us, we want to prove it's not right. It's not right. It's not that way.

Yeah. When I told Dave what I was feeling, when I said I had no feelings, I knew in my heart, I thought, oh, here we go. We're going to end up in a fight because this was our cycle. I would share what I feel. He would defend himself. He would prove to me that I was wrong.

And then it would kind of go nowhere. I didn't want to tell Dave that night that I didn't have any feelings. I thought this is the wrong time.

He's just put all this energy and money into a great night. And so I didn't want to bring it up, but he kept pressing me. What's going on?

I feel like you're really pulling back and you're pulling away right now. And so when I said, Dave, I've got nothing. I've got no feelings. I don't even – and here's what I said when he said, tell me more. I said I started out so angry, and then my anger turned to bitterness, and then my bitterness turned to resentment, and now I don't care. I don't care that you're gone.

I don't care that we're not doing well. I'm so cold inside, and I really don't have much hope. And I thought he was going to get so defensive, and he kept listening. And then, this was the most shocking thing to me, is he pulled the seat back of our Honda Accord, which was not a small car. And then he put the steering wheel up, and he got on his knees, and he started to pray out loud.

And I was shocked. Yeah, and what happened with me, Gary, is when Ann was sharing her heart, I heard God say one more thing, and it was repent. And what was really interesting is I knew in one word from God what repent meant. And, you know, I'm a preacher. I used the word repent, and it was different. You know, repent means metanoia – change your heart, change your mind, and go a different direction. And that's what God was saying, but what he was really communicating to me in one word was, if you think that you're going to solve this marriage problem on a horizontal basis just between you and Ann, it'll never be solved there. That's not even the problem.

The problem is vertical in nature. It's your relationship with me. And I knew what all that meant. I was lukewarm. I mean, I was running around doing all this ministry stuff.

I was speaking. If I was reading the Bible, it was only to get a sermon to give to the Detroit Lions or some church somewhere. And I was not intimate with God in my relationship. I had sort of lost my first love.

And it's interesting, in the book of Revelation, that's what Jesus says to the church who had lost their first love. Repent and do the things you did at first. And so I knew right then that before we could even talk about our marriage, I needed to get right with God. And that's why, when Ann finished, I said, hey, we need to talk, but I need to do something right now.

You don't need to do this, but I do. And I just felt like I needed to repent right then and there in the car. And I don't always get on my knees to pray, but I felt like my posture needed to be one of full submission and surrender.

And that's why I pushed the seat back in that little car and somehow turned around and the steering wheel was in my back. And I just prayed out loud, and I just said, God, I need to repent. I've lost my first love. I'm running around doing things for you, but I'm not with you. And I'm asking you to help me be the husband that my wife longs for and the dad my kids need. And I'm asking you to save our marriage.

Amen. And so I turned to Ann and said, okay, now we got to talk. And I look, and she's on her knees on her side of the car. Which was so interesting because if you would have asked me, what's the problem with your marriage? I would have said, it's my husband.

He is the problem. And yet when Dave was praying for, and the scripture that came to my mind was a gentle answer turns away wrath. When he began to pray, my heart just kind of melted and the Holy Spirit started speaking to me and convicting me. And I felt like the Holy Spirit said to me, Ann Wilson, you have been trying to get all of your needs met through Dave. And I never made him or equipped him to fill all of your needs.

That's my job. And what I realized was I had put so much focus on Dave and all the things that he was doing wrong that I had stopped looking to Jesus, my Savior, to fill me up with what really matters in life. And so I got on my knees the same night, the same time, and I prayed like, Lord, I have just been missing it. I've taken my eyes off you.

I've put them on Dave, and I repent too. And I put you back as the master and controller of my life, and I surrender everything to you. And that's where things really started to change.

Not overnight, mind you, but that's where it started. Dave, I'm loving the story that you and Ann tell, but I want to go, since I'm a man, I'm a husband, I want to go to your story. I hear a lot of men say, I told my wife that I was sorry. I told her that. I told God I was sorry, and now she doesn't forgive me. You didn't repent in order to get her to change her thought about you. You repented because you saw that you're going in the wrong direction, right? Yeah, my repentance was really just a revelation that I think is true of our marriage at that moment and still is and true of every marriage. And it's simply that the secret that we talk about in the book is that if you think you're going to find life and joy and happiness from your spouse or from an amount of money or some pleasure, you're never really going to be satisfied. In that moment when Ann said she had lost her feelings and why, I was sitting there realizing I've been trying to find my life and happiness from my job, from my ministry.

I've been almost leaving Ann in the background and running after things to try and find life. And in that one word when Jesus spoke to me, repent, I realized all the things I've been preaching, I'm not living. I'm telling other people to find life in Jesus and I'm not finding life there and I'm actually trying to find it outside of our marriage and Ann was trying to find it in me.

And so vertical marriage really simply means when you go vertical and find your life through a relationship with Christ where the Creator God actually does give you life and a deeper joy than you'll ever find anywhere on this planet, then you can come back to your marriage and be a giver rather than a taker. Because you're always trying to get something from your spouse. You should make me happy.

You should be treating me better. And even if they do, it's never going to satisfy when you find life in Christ. You now come back to your marriage, it changes everything. It's like I've found my life. I've found my joy. Now I want to serve and give as Christ commands us to. I want to love my wife as Christ loved the church.

You can't do that unless you go vertical and find your life and your power and your happiness from Christ alone. Ann, that's powerful. I can assure you that a lot of our listeners have been where you are and maybe some of them are there now. Ann, you said earlier that after those prayers that night, the two of you prayed in repentance to God, things did begin to change, but not immediately. What did happen? How did the process go from there?

Well, it's interesting. I was praying, God, bring my feelings back. I want to feel something for Dave again.

Because my heart had really hardened. And so we sat down, we went on a date night, and that's something that had slipped. Dave and I, when we first got married, date night was really important to us. And we were going on dates, but I think we were so exhausted.

And anyone with little kids, you're exhausted. You're just kind of surviving. And so we decided to become more intentional with our conversations on our date nights. And here's one of the things Dave did that I thought this was so brave and humble of him. We would go on a date and he would say, all right, on a scale of 1 to 10, tell me how you think we're doing. Because, Gary, when we went out on that date for our 10-year anniversary, I would have said we're a.5. He was saying we're a 10.

I said we're a.5. And so he said, like, how do you feel? Even that question of asking me, how are you doing, that would make my heart melt. Because instead of him driving and pursuing all these things in his career, he was focusing on me, which was so sweet. And he was humble. And he would say, okay, if that's your number, what do you think it would take for us to get the number higher? Isn't that just, that's so humble.

Trust me, I was scared to ask that question. I really almost didn't want to ask it, but I knew, again, if I'm going to serve her, she's going to know better than I do how we're really doing. And she'll also know better than I do how we can do better.

And so it was a sense to say, I want to serve you. I want to learn from you. I want us to be a 10. I want us to be as close to a 10 as we can. How do we get there? So I knew that I needed a weekly, at least a weekly date night to check in and say, okay, how are we doing? How are we really, really doing? And let's be honest and let's do the work to get better. The other thing we started doing was praying together.

And that's something else that just started to slip over time. And to be honest, I started becoming resentful. Dave's tired and he would fall asleep and here's what was going on in my mind. Oh, well, you're falling asleep and you're supposed to be the spiritual leader. If you're not going to pray, I'm not going to pray. That's a win for Satan right there who wants to destroy our relationships. And after that point, I thought, if God brings it to my mind to pray, I'm going to pray.

Whether Dave's asleep or he's awake, I'm just going to put my hand on him, thank God for him and begin asking God. And I think our personal walks with Jesus really started to be reignited because we were desperate. We were desperate for our marriage to be better and we were desperate for his power and his words and his voice and the word to become alive in our lives again. So I think those are a few of the things that we started to do that really helped. And we actually have found out from people around the country as they've read the book that when they just started the first thing of praying together daily, and again, it could be a five-minute prayer or a one-minute prayer, that one move changes a lot in your marriage.

So for us, that's where it starts. It's a pray daily, date weekly, and then we try to retreat annually, which is get away once a year and work on our marriage. When you talk about praying together, I think it's impossible to come to God together and it not begin to affect your behavior, right? As I listen to what you've said already, it's obvious to me God cares about marriage. He cares about you too. And he spoke to you and let you see yourself as he sees you and you responded.

That's necessary for all of us if we're going to make progress. I had one woman call me and she said, Ann, I want you to know we read your book and my husband took my hand and he said, I want to get on our knees together and I want to surrender our relationship to God together. And she said he had never prayed or initiated prayer or had never prayed out loud with her. And she said, I sobbed.

I sobbed because it was the most intimate thing we had ever done together as a couple. Now, the subtitle of the book is The One Secret That Will Change Your Marriage. Now, you've already talked a bit about this, but that one secret, I take it, is a vertical marriage.

Now, just explain a little further. What do you mean by a vertical marriage? Well, when I thought about that night later, you know, the night in our ten-year anniversary, first thing I thought was nobody's ever going to hear this story because, you know, it was really a dark moment in our marriage. And yet now, as we've moved 30 years past that night, I've realized and heard thousands of times that many marriages are in the same place.

They're really struggling and they're thinking the same thing we thought. You know, you get married and you think, my spouse is it. She's going to, he's going to bring me all the happiness I want. And then when they don't bring you that happiness, which could happen in the first year of marriage or five, but at some point, you're sort of disappointed. And many people think, well, I married the wrong spouse.

That's the problem. You know, if I had married him or married her, then I'd be happy. And what we realized that night, what vertical marriage means is you didn't marry the wrong spouse.

You're looking in the wrong place. And so when you go vertical and look to Jesus, look to God as our creator and our savior and our Lord, the only one who can truly bring us the happiness we're looking for everywhere else, and actually looking for love in the wrong places, when you find it in Christ by going vertical, that's what vertical means, then it changes the horizontal, changes your marriage. So really it's that simple. It's go vertical, find life in Christ, and it will change your marriage.

And actually it will change everything. So if our heart is beating with the heart of God, then we're going to have a servant attitude toward each other. And the marriage is enriched as a byproduct of our relationship with God.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, it really is. And, you know, obviously I'm not saying it's a perfect thing that happens every minute of every day, but as I find my true power and life through a relationship with Christ, which is easy to say, it's a whole other thing to live out, it empowers me in a way I'll never find that power in myself. And one of the biggest changes that happens in any person's life when they convert to Christ is selfishness is transformed into selflessness. And again, I'm not saying it's easy or instantaneously, but, you know, my whole life was about how can Anne serve me? How can Anne meet my needs? And then as I went vertical, it's like, no, wait, it's not about her serving me, it's about me serving Christ by serving her. And so that changes everything.

You got two spouses doing that or even one spouse doing that, that will bring a happiness to your marriage you'll never find anywhere else. But I would say this, that it's hard to do on a continual basis all the time because life is hard. We have life circumstances that are difficult, but that's always the goal, that we put our eyes on Jesus, that he's the one that fills us up. So Anne, what are some practical ways that we do, to use your phrase, keep our eyes on Jesus? I know for me, besides like, honestly, I have to be in the Bible, I have to read it. And since this happened, it's interesting, I got to the place where I thought I need to be in the Bible every day, whether my kids are little, whether they're big. And so one of the things I do now is I read through the Bible every single year. I do the one-year Bible plan. And sometimes I'm reading it quickly, sometimes I'm listening to it if I'm in the car and I'm busy, but there's something about that that anchors my soul, that puts my eyes in the right place, that Jesus is my fulfiller. Also, I think another thing that's really important is to have friendships.

People that you're accountable to, I've had women's groups, I've had the same friends for 25 years. On the Wednesday of every week, I have two friends that we fast and pray for each other on Wednesday. And it's one person's turn, and we will pray for my friend Michelle.

We'll pray for her all day and fast for her all day, and so she'll send her prayer requests. That's so good to have other people alongside you that are praying, that knows you, that knows what's going on, going to church. I mean, those are some things for me practically that have been really good.

Yeah. You know, one thing that has really brought life to my soul is worship, singing worship and listening and playing. And that's something a married couple can do together as well. But often, obviously for Ann and I, that happens in a community called the church. And you know, those women that Ann's doing life with, I'm doing life with their husbands.

And those couples have been with us, and we've been with them for a couple decades. And that community, every couple needs. You need people sharpening you and encouraging you and with you in the valley as well when you go through the dark times. To try and do that alone is not healthy. And that's why God gave us the community called the church to say, you've got to find community to help you go vertical.

Yeah. You know what, as I'm listening to your story, Dave and Ann, it's so heartening. I think a lot of people who are sitting in the pew think, you know, pastors and the leaders in the church, they have it all together and we are trying to aspire. Sometimes the pastors, the leaders in front of us are going through the same struggles, if not deeper struggles than the people in the pew.

So just you guys telling your story, I think, is reparative, don't you think? Yes, the truth is, we all struggle. And it is easy to think people on a platform or on a radio show have it all together, but the truth is, man, we all struggle.

We all have struggles in our marriages. And we've discovered, really, that as we've been honest and told people our struggle, it helps them. They realize, wow, they're just like us, and yet we try to point them to the victory. So even when Ann and I host our radio show or speak at our churches, I'm hoping that people sitting there and listening think really two things. I'm hoping they think, wow, they struggle like us, but they have a victory in Christ that I'm not sure I understand, and I want that.

So I hope both happens. They go, wow, they are struggling, but there's a victory that's real that's available to us, too. And it's all about this relationship with Christ.

And so I hope that it brings victory to their home. Dave and Ann, I really, really like the way you are so honest in the book. We were reflecting on that a bit before the break. And in the book, you actually record statements you made to each other that were not healthy statements. For example, Dave, you said this once to her. I just told God that I would rather be dead than to be married to you. Where were you on the journey when you said that? I mean, we could laugh now, but that was in like the seventh or eighth month of our marriage.

So year one, we just had moved to Nebraska to be the chaplain for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. And yeah, we were just struggling so bad every day, conflicts. We didn't know how to resolve conflict. We knew how to have it, but we didn't know how to resolve it.

And so "The 5 Love Languages" hadn't come out yet, so we didn't have any tools yet, Gary. Yeah, Gary, it's your fault. I'm going to blame you for this whole thing. But honestly, I mean, it was just a moment of desperation where I got on my knees at three in the morning because I couldn't sleep. And I had come downstairs because Dave wasn't in the bed. So I go downstairs and I see him on his knees with his Bible on the couch and he's reading it. And I'm thinking, oh, good, at least he's reading his Bible. But then I said, hey, what are you doing? He said, I'm just sitting here reading Paul's words to live as Christ and to die as gain. And I just told God that I would rather be dead than to be married to you.

Gary, who says that to his new wife? So looking back, I should have never been that honest. But that's where I was.

She asked and you told her. But here's the thing. We can laugh now. But think about this. In that moment, there was no joy.

There was no laughter. And the reason we're laughing now is because we found that Christ really does save a marriage. He can do that and never give up, never quit. You never know what God can do. And not only is he saving our marriage, but he's using it to help save others. So that's a miracle.

That's only God. Yeah, and we did. I had told Dave our first year of marriage that marrying him was the biggest mistake of my life.

And that wasn't good either. And I think what we kind of committed to each other after that first year of wounding one another with our words. And that sticks.

You kind of hold on to those and they really do hurt. But we committed to one another that we would not use words to harm one another in the future. And I think we've done that. I think we have. Well, you know, when you all share that, things like that in the book, and this is one reason why I think this book's going to help so many people, is because people identify with this.

I mean, they've been there. Maybe they didn't say it exactly the way you said it, but they've had those feelings. You know, I mean, I'm listening to you all reflecting on my own marriage. And that's the way we were in the first year of our marriage, you know. So let's talk a little bit about, you mentioned conflicts. And we know that all couples have conflicts because we're human and we think differently.

We feel differently. What have you learned about how to solve conflicts, how to work through conflicts in a positive way? Well, one of the first things that we mentioned in the section in the book on conflicts is, I didn't know until I got married that I was a withdrawer of conflict. I didn't like conflict. I sort of walked away and literally would walk out of the room when a conflict happened because I just didn't know what to do with it.

I grew up in a home where mom and dad were alcoholics. They ended up in divorce. I saw conflict in our home and it ended with divorce. So I just sort of thought, you avoid conflict.

You know, you don't step into it. And so we get married and we're in conflicts and I literally would walk out of the room. And I grew up in a family where we dealt with conflict. Sometimes it was intense, sometimes we would yell. And so when our first fight occurred and Dave walked out of the room, I was shocked. And so I yell at him. Another great thing she said to me, Gary, listen to this. Come back here and fight me like a man, you chicken.

That didn't go over very well either. But our conflict styles were very different. I wanted to attack and resolve the conflict and I would use my words to attack where Dave would just pull away, which then I would end up poking him or trying to get him to say anything because he would shut down. So I think our family origin of what our style was, what we saw in our homes, I think that it's good to talk about that. And why we handle conflict the way we do. Yeah, I think understanding that background and the impact of our patterns that we grew up in is important. You know, I sometimes like to say we are certainly influenced by the environment in which we grew up. But thank God we're not controlled by that, you know.

And that's the positive side, the positive message in your book here. How about the whole thing about going to bed angry? A lot of couples, this is a standard thing with them.

At what juncture did you all decide not to do that? Well, we, as we mentioned, you know, we would be in conflicts and fight into the wee hours of the morning. I mean two or three in the morning. And the reason we did this is we were told before we got married, you cannot go to bed angry.

Ephesians 4 26, we were trying to resolve it. And I'd be laying there trying to stay awake. And I would be so mad because he would fall asleep.

And I'd say, you don't even care about our relationship. And now you're disobeying God by falling asleep because we're not resolving our conflict before the sun goes down. Yeah, and so it hit me one night, I think it was in the first couple years of our marriage, you know, here we are at three in the morning, we're not getting anywhere, I'm trying to stay awake, we keep fighting. And I said to her, just maybe that's not what that verse means, you know. It says, do not let the sun go down on your anger. I said, the sun went down hours ago, so we have till tomorrow night's sunset.

And so let's go to sleep and talk about this tomorrow. And long story short, we did realize that verse isn't literal. It's a verse that says, deal with your conflict consistently and quickly. But a lot of times Anne would say, so what are you thinking, what are you feeling?

I'd say, I don't really know. And then she'd get mad. And then I realized over time I didn't know, but when I woke up the next morning and had some time and even sat with God for a moment, I was like, hey, I do know now why I was angry, can we talk? And so, and I'm not saying you should wait a day or a week, but there are times when it's probably helpful to actually go to bed and talk about it tomorrow. And I was scared to have time go by because Dave was withdrawing from conflict anyway, and I thought a day would turn into a week, would turn into two weeks, and then we would never talk about it. But we really did kind of give ourselves a timeframe that within 24 hours we would come back and talk about it.

Because I was a quick processor, I knew instantly what I felt and thought. Sometimes it would take Dave 24 hours and then a light bulb would go on that he wouldn't really understand what he's feeling. And honestly, I usually will tell couples, when you are in the thick of it where you're so mad and angry, sometimes it's good to let those feelings simmer down to talk to God a little bit about what's going on because we say some really harsh and mean things in the midst of our anger. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's move to another topic. There are chapters in the book that deal with the sexual part of marriage. Let's talk about that.

Are you sure, Gary? Do you want to talk about that one? Well, it's in the Bible and it's in your book, so let's talk about it. What are some of the things you share in your conferences and in the book on this topic?

Well, I tell you, there's a lot. We put a whole section in the book just because we thought, if you're going to talk about vertical marriage, you need to talk about God's perspective on this area as well. And over decades and really centuries, the church hasn't done a great job of saying, here's God's heart on sex, especially for a married couple that God actually loves, that a married couple would make love and be intimate sexually. That's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. I grew up in a church where you never heard anything about sex, and if you did, it was that it's wrong and dirty, and if you do it, you'll go bald, which I am.

Jay thinks that's funny because he's so bald. So we just thought, if we're writing a book on marriage, let's put God's perspective in there. And to be really honest, and it's in the book, there's the dark side of the sexual temptation and struggle in the world we live in, even with pornography, and that is something that I had struggled with early in our marriage, and I write a chapter about how to win in that area as a man and how that affects your marriage as well. So we're real honest, again, in that section of the book as well, trying to give God's heart for sexual intimacy for a married couple, but also the struggles that are inherent in our world and how to avoid them.

Yeah, which is so important in today's culture. Well, you know, we often in our program will have calls, folks call and leave questions online, and particularly men, not always, but often men, who will say, you know, my wife is just not interested or not as interested as I am in physical intimacy. What do you say about that? Well, I have a story for that. There is one day Dave was at home working on a sermon in his office upstairs, and we had a four- and two-year-old, and I was pregnant with a third, and it was one of those rough mornings with two little boys, and I had my laundry basket with laundry in it, I had my sweatpants on, I had no makeup on, I had the two-year-old in the basket walking to the laundry room with the four-year-old. And I looked into Dave in the office, and his feet were propped up, and he had his Bible in his lap, and he said, hey, Anne, wait a minute, just come in here for a second. And I said, what's up? And he said, I'm just sitting here, and I'm just wondering, do you think about our sex life all day long? And I'm like, are you kidding me right now?

Look at me, this is my life right now. And he was just like, oh, that's such a bummer. Where I walked downstairs thinking, we are so different. Because I think for a woman, and not every woman is like this, but for me the relationship part is so important to the physical part of our intimacy. And I think sometimes what can happen for at least when your kids are little or you're busy, you're stressed, life is just running hard, I think what can happen is the physical intimacy, if it's only that, especially for a woman, and you feel like your husband's not pursuing you in relationship, that can be really hard because then we feel like you're an object, all you want to do is have sex, and I'm not as important. So I think for Dave and I discussing that, how important affection still was, that he was still pursuing having a relationship with me, and it wasn't just about sex. I'll never forget, we were at a conference and we were listening to the great Howard Hendricks and his wife Jeannie, who was a Dallas prof at seminary, and they were in their mid-80s, and someone had the audacity to ask Howard, Howard, what is sex life? What's your sex life like in your 80s? And we're all flabbergasted of who would ask him this question, and without a beat, without a second beat, Howard said, our sex life is better than it's ever been.

And we were all like, what? And he said, you know, those of you who have been married 15 years or younger, you think that sex is all about the physical. And he said the older you get, you realize that sexual intimacy is really a union of the soul. And I think Dave and I stopped right where we were at that point and thought, we need to understand God's viewpoint of intimacy, physical intimacy in marriage.

It was really stunning. Well, in the last segment, we were talking about the sexual part of the marriage. And of course, the theme of the book is vertical, the vertical marriage, our relationship with God. How does that impact the sexual aspect of marriage?

Great question. I honestly had no idea early in our marriage and sort of discovered, as Ann mentioned earlier, that the relationship is so critical to a woman's heart. Early in our marriage, when our kids were little, I would desire sex with Ann more than she did with me. We had conflicts about this. I mean, a lot of couples don't want to talk about this, but we really had some conflicts. I'm like, I don't think you're interested. And she was trying to tell me what she said earlier, that their sexual relationship for her was about our relationship. How are we doing? And there's a part of me that's like, who cares?

We're fine. Let's just make love. And I had to realize that when I go vertical and I become a servant of Christ to my wife, it's not about me. Even in the bedroom, it's not about me. It's about how do I love her?

How do I serve her? And so I had to learn to listen. What do you mean it's about the relationship? And she said it earlier, but I started to learn, oh, it's about affection. Not sexual touch, but actually non-sexual touch. Are we holding hands? Are we kissing? Am I hugging her? Am I being just gentle with her physically?

And you know what, Gary? Honestly, no, I wasn't. I really wasn't. It was like, no wonder she's not interested. I'm not even gentle with my words with her. And so all of that, the relational part, is so critical to the woman.

And I'm not saying it isn't important to men, but I found that my wife needed that. That was like foreplay, you know, as we talk, as we communicate, as I touch her in a non-sexual way, as we go out on dates. And I always joke, I say, you know, we go on a date, Ann wants to talk. Not talk, talk. About our relationship. About our relationship. And again, I'm not doing that because I know or hope that it will end up in the bedroom, but I'm doing that because I love her and I want to serve her and I want to honor her.

And yes, does that have an effect in the bedroom? Yes, it's like she has a desire for me. And I actually found out, she told me this early in our marriage, when you walk with God, it's like a turn on for me. And I'm like, if that's the way it works, I'm going to become the apostle Paul, you know? I was like, what are you talking about?

But that was what she's communicating. Oh, when Dave initiates prayer, when he's praying for our boys, when he's leading them spiritually or having conversation, that is so attractive. So attractive to me as a woman, I think for many women. And even one of the things Dave's done since our boys were born and our oldest is just turned 34. He has fasted and prayed for our boys every Friday until dinner. For their wives, for their future, for their spiritual walks, for their jobs, for their school.

That to me is so attractive. I want to follow him wherever he goes when he walks with Jesus. You know, I think most Christian wives have that same sense. They don't always verbalize it, but if their husbands are really not walking with God, there's little evidence of that.

You know, it's painful to her heart, but when she sees him taking that kind of walk with God, it draws her to him. Well, now you two speak at marriage conferences around the country, and you've been doing that for several years. Can a weekend away like that really make a difference in a marriage that's pretty severely broken?

I would heartily answer yes. I mean, no, a conference or retreat is not going to save your marriage, although it's catalytic and it can be a big part of saving your marriage. And so, yeah, we do our vertical marriage conferences around the country. We speak for Family Life Weekend to Remembers, and we'll have couples walk up to us and say, you know, this is the first time we've been away together in 20 years. That's good, right?

And we're like, no, that's not good. I mean, I'm glad you're here, but you need to do something like this regularly. Anything that you put time and energy and effort into is going to get better. And so if you're in trouble, or even if you have a good marriage, get away. Spend 48 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours working on the most critical relationship in your life, and that's your marriage. And that's the best thing you can do for your children, by the way. You know, you feel bad leaving them for the weekend.

No, leave them for the weekend. You're going to come back a better husband and wife, better mom and dad, and they're going to copy what you do as they grow up and become adults. We've literally seen our sons do that in their marriages. But yes, that's where God meets you, changes you, and that can save a legacy. And we have been doing it for 30 years with Family Life Weekend to Remember.

And our own, we've been doing it for many years too. We wouldn't take the time to do that on a weekend if we weren't seeing marriages change. And honestly, God is the one that changes marriages. But when you get in a place where you're hearing God, where you're hearing truth, when you're hearing the Word, it really does transform a marriage.

It can. But don't ever forget this, and we say this at every conference, what you do after is what's critical, because you go to the retreat, you go to the conference, and good things happen. But if you don't continue that, it's going to go right back to where it was. And so when you go home, you need to jump in. One of the great things, Family Life just released the Vertical Marriage Small Group five-week study, and so you can go through the material in a small group with other couples. That is going to change your marriage. That's what you need to do. You need to continue that, and that's where God meets you.

And then you become, not only change marriage, you become some way God uses to change other marriages. Well, thank you two for being with us today. This has been so encouraging, and I know that our listeners who have heard this are identifying with your example and then your words and the focus you have on walking with Christ. So thanks for being with us today. It was our pleasure. Thank you.

Thanks. David and Wilson have written Vertical Marriage, the one secret that will change your marriage, and you can find out more at fivelovelanguages.com. Again, go to fivelovelanguages.com. And next week, if you're in a blended family, don't miss the practical help we'll get from Lon Diehl. Discover how to build love together in a blended family using "The 5 Love Languages" .

That's in one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd, and helping us in Little Rock, Keith Lynch, Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman in his production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.