Your Marriage Today…and Tomorrow

Some say marriage is just a piece of paper and that it's on its way out. But our guest today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman says you can make a difference in the world now and for generations with your marriage. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" .

Today, a husband who's been married to his wife nearly 50 years will talk about the amazing impact a godly marriage can have on you, your family, and future generations. Today's program first aired almost a year ago when we featured Crawford Loretz, who's written our featured resource, along with his wife Karen. You can find it at fivelovelanguages.com. The book's titled Your Marriage Today and Tomorrow, making your relationship matter now and for generations to come.

It's at fivelovelanguages.com. Gary, we've talked about the early years of your marriage to Carolyn and how you both struggled. Did you have the same vision for the difference a marriage can make back then that you do today?

My short answer is no. In the early years of our marriage, I was not thinking about making an impact on future generations. I was just trying to survive in my generation. We've talked about our relationship in the past, but Carolyn and I really had a lot of struggles in those early years. Thankfully, we stayed together. Our son came home from college.

I'll never forget this. First year of college, he came home and put one of his hands on my shoulder and one on his mother's, looked us in the eyes and said, I want to thank you guys for staying together. He said, I have five friends at the university who are not going home for Christmas because their mom and dad divorced after they left for college, and they don't know where to go home, so they're not going home. Man, that was payback because we had told him through the years, of course, our kids, we were open about our early struggles with them when they came along, and so he knew that. But that's really what we're talking about today with Crawford is the fact that our marriage is going to make an impact negatively or positively on the generations to come, so I'm excited about our conversation today. Yeah, and it's not commensurate with the lack of struggle.

As a matter of fact, it may be the struggles that you have that propels you. We'll find out what Crawford has to say about that. He is the senior pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia. He's written along with his wife, Karen, our featured resource, Your Marriage Today and Tomorrow. Crawford and Karen are featured speakers at Family Life marriage conferences. They're co-authors of Developing Character in Your Child. They have four married children, eleven grandchildren, unless that's changed.

You can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Crawford, welcome to Building Relationships. Oh, Gary, good to be with you.

I'm trusting that the eleven has not changed. I think as far as grandma and grandpa are concerned, our quiver's full. Oh, well, it's always a joy to have you on the program and to be with you from time to time. You know, you and I have been in conferences and along with Karen.

Always good to be with you. Let me ask that question of you, the one that Chris asked of me. When you and Karen were married 47 years ago, did you see marriage then as being the powerful force for good in the world today? Well, you know, I love your answer because my answer is the same as yours.

The short answer is no. No, I mean, you know, she was 20 and I was 21 and scared to death. And how are we going to make this work? And by the way, we've got to pay for, you know, bills and school and we still had to finish. But I didn't have that clear vision in my heart and mind. On the other hand, what I did have was, you know, I knew that family and marriage was terribly important for generations in my family and the model of my mother and father, and I wanted that. And so that was the vision.

Yeah, yeah. You were looking back and seeing the stability of their marriage. Well, there's no question that in our culture, marriage is under constant attack. Where do you think this is coming from? You know, it's just been going on now for years.

How did we get to where we are in our country? Well, of course, there's the world, the flesh and the devil, you know, the enemy's not sitting back in his La-Z-Boy lounger while we just, you know, gallivant across the years with the great marital bliss and that kind of thing. But I actually think, I've thought a lot about this, I actually think the erosion of truth has weakened commitment. In other words, over the years, over the last 60, 70 years, we have moved away from objective truth to elevating how we feel and personal happiness and how I feel about the moment and what is contributing to my personal, well, happiness is really all that matters. And so what's happened is that I think that, you know, living by vows is negotiable, it's all relative and this kind of thing and it's fed a divorce culture and the divorce culture continues to erode marriage. And then, of course, you have a culture that's feeding into that and differing values and this kind of thing. And so I think when you drift away from objective truth, you've just assigned yourself to all kinds of division and weakness and the lack of strength.

Yeah. Well, I think you're exactly right. Let's talk about God's vision for marriage. Sometimes you wonder if we even have the concept anymore. What was God's perspective? I mean, he instituted marriage in the very beginning with Adam and Eve, so talk a little bit about God's vision for marriage. Yeah, and it gets back to at the very beginning when God created Adam and Eve and he created Adam and he created Eve and thus created family to reflect his image from one generation to the next. And I actually believe that there are two grand theological biblical purposes for marriage and the family.

It's not just about us being happy and there is that and it's not just about solving problems and there is that. But foundationally, fundamentally, our marriage is to reflect the unity of the love relationship that the Trinity has. And that's what marriage and family is all about. It's reflecting human history what that's all about.

And then secondly, it is to steward that image from one generation to the next to be positive, intentional image bearers. And so really, our marriage is to tell the truth about God and then you have a fall of mankind and then Christ comes and he comes to reestablish that which was lost. And so ultimately, and Paul paints this picture in Ephesians chapter 5, our marriage is to tell the truth about Jesus Christ and what he can do.

And so that really is the goal and vision of marriage. You know, a lady just said to me last week at one of the meetings where I was speaking, she said, you know, I have two children. And she said the most important thing is they both are following Jesus. And she said to me, you know, there's nothing more important than that.

And I agreed with her. You know, it's that whole thing that John said, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth. Oh yeah. Amen. Amen.

And that is a joy indeed. And that's what it's really all about. And I just sometimes think that the transactional stuff in marriage, which is very important, don't get me wrong, but the transactional stuff in marriage has replaced the vision. And the stuff of endurance has to do with not so much how do you get something done, but why do you do it?

And that helps us to sort of make it home before dark, so to speak. When you say transactional stuff, what are you talking about? Well, the how-tos, you know, and we need to know how to resolve conflict. We need to know how to build one another up, and how to raise our kids, and how to make good decisions, and all of that. We need to know how to do that. But the question underneath all of that is for what?

Or why? And I think it's pressing into the why that helps us to hang in there and to endure. And so it's not just doing the right transactional stuff that helps us to get, quote, better. It's why I'm doing this that really, really gives me the endurance and helps me to press through the hard spots and places in my marriage. That featured resource is the book by our guest Crawford Loritz. He and his wife, Karen, have written your marriage today and tomorrow, making your relationship matter now and for generations to come. We're talking about how to build a marriage now that your kids will thank you for later.

The Forward is by Dr. Gary Chapman, by the way, and you can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Chris, this was a book I was glad to write The Forward to because I really love the message of this book. Crawford, you talk in the book about marriage affecting future generations.

In fact, this is one of the themes that runs through there for better or for worse. And you're not just simply talking about divorce statistics here, are you? No, no, no, no, not at all.

Not at all. But it's about positive movement in our marriage and our marriage actually modeling where the next generation should be and giving them hope. And it's not just about, hey, let's just stay together and not have a divorce.

No, it's proactive. Let's build our lives around those enduring principles that are not affected by time or generations that produce real lasting joy and reason for living and that kind of thing. Yeah, now you and your own wife, Karen, you came to marriage, as Carolyn and I did, with different perspectives, different backgrounds. Talk a little bit about that in your own life and then how you all came to work together in terms of unity.

Yeah, yeah. You know, Karen and I, our backgrounds probably could not be any more different. And this is the reason why I say today that compatibility is good, but sometimes it's overrated. And so Karen comes from a background, I mean, she, her mother had her, she's, you know, her mother was not married and she was a teenager when Karen was born and Karen was born in the inner city of Philadelphia and she calls it the concrete jungle. And in Karen's words, you know, she says men were an endangered species in her family background, that intact couples and that kind of thing, they just, men just didn't stick around. Well, you know, the flip side of that is that I come from a background on my dad's side that goes all the way back to slavery when my great grandfather, Peter, who had been a former slave, loved his wife and loved his family and there are these generations where divorce has been unheard of on my side of the family.

And there's been, you know, it's not perfect, but there's been strong marriages and my dad modeled that with my mom. And so when Karen and I come together, we absolutely come from totally different backgrounds. But the thing that's made the difference, and I talk about this in the book, is that our common ground was a cross. And what Jesus Christ did in Karen's life and how the Lord brought women into her life to nurture her and to mentor her and this wonderful church that enfolded her as a young teenager. And, you know, I even get emotional almost every time I talk about it.

I've never talked about it for years. But just to see how God nurtured her. And so our common ground was Calvary. And for whatever reason, God gave in Karen a desire to break that pattern in her past.

And that desire to break that pattern and the Word of God, her commitment to Jesus, has made her just my hero. Yeah, absolutely. You write that most marriages that fall apart do so because of failure to pursue three crucial choices.

Tell us what those three choices are. Yeah, they mention in Genesis 2 24, you know, the grand vision of marriage is declared there when, you know, God presents Eve to Adam in this declaration, Therefore shall the man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Well, that's not just a declaration. I happen to believe that those are choices that you have to make. And they're ongoing decisions and ongoing choices that you have to make throughout the course of your marriage. The first one is leaving and that speaks of this being the priority relationship in all of life. That you've got to decide and choose that this marriage, this relationship, is the priority relationship. And I'm leaving home. I'm leaving emotional attachment.

And and so I'm leaving and I've declared that this is where I live, meaning between myself and my wife, my wife and my husband. Holding fast has to do with the idea that not only have I made the commitment, but I'm going to keep sticking with this person no matter what. It's an intentional clinging to one another. I'm not talking about an unhealthy codependency here, but an intentional clinging to one another because, as I said earlier, that this is the most important relationship in life apart from Jesus Christ.

And we're not going anywhere. And my commitment is not superficial. And so we hold fast to each other.

And I think the becoming of one flesh means the it's the sexual union. But McGarry, as you know, it's more than just that intimacy is more than just that. It's a commitment to an ongoing growing knowing of each other that that I am going to be for the rest of my life. My number one preoccupation, apart from my walk with God, is to know Karen.

And so it is with her is to know me. And so it's majoring in that these are these are ongoing decisions and choices that we make. They give depth and richness and a wonderful sense of sweetness to a marriage and relationship. And I think when we do those three things, we do have what God intended marriage to be.

A loving, supportive, caring relationship in which you help each other accomplish God's purposes in your lives. Amen. Amen. And you're in this thing together. And it's like spiritual drafting because you've made these decisions. Well, Crawford, we know that even if we have this ideal in mind that God has given us, it doesn't just happen. We have to make choices along the way as we make those three choices. We have to live them out in our lives. And it's book like yours that help us do that. If you had to say, just in a sentence or two here, how you feel like this book will help people kind of live out those choices, what would you say? Yeah, I think the book, we wrote the book to help give people a framework to make this happen.

It's intentional. Marriage, it's not just about sitting down and holding each other's hands and looking one another's eyes, even with an open Bible and saying, here's the truth and we believe this and all of that. No, you've got to translate that and put that in the shoe leather and put clothes on all of that. And so that means rolling up your sleeves and being intentional about it. And so throughout the book, what we do is that we talk about habits. We talk about the banks of the river, things that we need to do. We talk a little bit about resolving conflict because we don't live in heaven and bored down here, you know, the reality of dealing with these issues. And so that's the reason why we wrote the book, that your legacy is intentional, but there's also some very practical baseline things that we have to do. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, in the business of today's world, with couples being so, so busy, and especially if they have children still at home, sometimes we end up drifting away from each other.

How do we avoid the drift? Well, you know, and it happens. I mean, we've faced that through the years, Gary, in our own marriage. I mean, I've been involved in ministry now. When we got married, we stepped right into ministry. About 47 years of our lives together has been ministry and traveling and demands and kids and, you know, sometimes our priorities got out of whack and this kind of thing. But one of the things I think we need to do is identify what are the banks of the river that will keep this marriage flowing in the right direction?

And what are those things that we have to keep doing in the priority of one another, priority of relationship, to keep things moving? And I remember a number of years ago, Gary, this was probably, oh, probably about almost 25, maybe close to 30 years ago now, I came perilously close to burnout. And I didn't, but I tell you what, I was just right there, and some friends pulled me aside, and Karen wasn't very happy. I was really busy.

The kids were young and all of this stuff. And then someone pulled me aside and said to me, looked me in the eye and said, Crawford, there are only three things you do in life that nobody else can do for you. Nobody can walk with God for you but you. Nobody can be the husband of Karen LaRich for you but you. And nobody can be the father of your children for you but you. Every single thing else you do, somebody can and ultimately will do for you. And it was like a wake-up call for me. And so you have to keep in mind constantly what are your core priorities in life, who's most important in your life, and be vigilant about not letting schedules and other demands erode those things.

Yeah, yeah. Talk a little more about building up the banks. We say in the book, you know, you get on an airplane, you're flying on a very clear day, sometimes you look out of the window and you see a river just flowing along, and you realize that those banks of the river keep that river flowing to its ultimate destination. And so it is with marriage. You know, if you don't have banks, you either have a swamp or a flood, something's going on here, so you need to identify how are we going to keep this river flowing in this direction, flowing to where it should be, how are we going to keep this marriage going there. And in the book we talk about what the banks of the river, some of the elements involved in the banks of the river, these things that, decisions that we have to make and choices that we have to make, making sure that the water doesn't overflow the banks and you don't end up knowing where you're going.

What are some of those things that we can do, Crawford, to build up the banks, make sure the banks are there? Well, the first one is, and I've already said it, is keeping the marriage the core focus of your life, but not necessarily the central passion of your heart. I know I just said something that sounds like a contradiction. The central passion of our heart should be our love for Jesus Christ. And the marriage should never replace that.

And I think sometimes there is the danger of the marriage becoming an idol, and you have to be careful. But it has to be the core focus of our lives. And so whatever we need to do to make that happen, let's do it. We need to feed the relationship. And that means that we spend time with one another. We figure out what each other's love language happens to be. And I'm not just saying it's because you're on the line here, but Gary, I think "The 5 Love Languages" have been used mightily of God to help people to major on what really is most important in terms of building that relationship and expressing that love. And we need to feed that and fuel it, and regular time of reading the Bible together and praying together and lightening each other's loads and identifying what refreshes your spouse and serving together and spending regular uninterrupted time together. All of this stuff is helpful in strengthening where we need to be. Then I think we need to decide on and keep boundaries. Everything drives your time and attention.

Everything does. And if we're not vigilant and think ahead of time about, okay, what are the boundaries in this relationship? Who are we going to listen to?

How do we make decisions here? All of that kind of thing is really, really important. And then we need to learn how one of the other banks of the river, interestingly enough, is to leverage each other's differences. You know, differences are not necessarily wrong.

They're just different. But to learn how to leverage those differences rather than fighting each other and trying to make the other person like you, no, you're strong in the big picture. She's strong in the details here. Okay, let's work together and leverage this so we can go in the right direction and work off of some synergy here. Can you give us an example in your own life on a difference that you come to see? First of all, it's irritating to you, but then you come to see that it's really helpful.

Yeah. Well, you know, I just almost hinted at it, but Karen and I, my wife is an organizer to the nth degree. She never met a detail she did not love, and she is an incredible money manager. Well, she's married to somebody that's visionary, and I'm not irresponsible when it comes to resources and this kind of thing, but I just don't like doing it. Well, the first couple of years that we were married, I thought that I had to be the head of my house meant that I had to write all the checks and that I need to make sure that all the bills are being paid on, and I was horrible at doing that, just terrible. And I had to swallow my pride and realize that not only does my wife like doing it, she's great at doing that. And ever since we stopped those first couple of years, we had some arguments and that kind of thing, and finally when I gave in to that and submitted to her and said, I need your help, and she began to help me and not fight me against where we need to go and what the big picture was, and this kind of thing, so we work together now, and it's been sweet.

But there are some choppy waters there in the first couple of years. We were talking earlier about having certain things in place so that the river flows within its banks, but you also talk about three habits that give enduring life to a marriage. What are those, and how do we need to build those into our lives? Yeah, Karen and I have discovered in our marriage that there are three core things that just sort of give life to the marriage and energy to it. I think the first one is this, the pursuit of Christ-likeness, both individually and as a couple, to constantly be growing together in terms of your walk and relationship with God.

That's where the real power comes in the marriage. And then secondly, I suppose this comes out of the first one, is the intentional pursuit of character development and integrity, that you can be trusted as a person, that we're overcoming our faults and failures and our shortcomings. And none of us are perfect. In fact, we say all the time that the only option that you have if you're going to get married is you've got to marry a sinner. And we're fallen, but we need to be growing and overcoming and not accommodating those sinful weaknesses and sort of character gaps and breaches and integrity, strengthening those things.

And that needs to be a habit, that we're constantly working on that. And then thirdly, we need to practice forgiveness. You know, I've learned to ask as a pastor when young couples come to me and they want to get married, one of the first things I ask them is to tell me, how are you at forgiving and receiving forgiveness? Because a commitment to be married is a commitment to forgive. And so to be able to practice forgiveness, to receive it and to give it, adds sweet humility to the relationship. And it opens up our hearts and says that you're needy and I'm needy, but the one who meets our needs is Jesus and that we love each other and we forgive each other and we want to work toward being whole in these areas that we fail.

So those are the three habits, character, development, the pursuit of Christ's likeness, and giving and receiving forgiveness. And that forgiveness aspect also means that we have to be willing to apologize, right? Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. There's no forgiveness apart from apology. I mean, the acknowledgement of it. Let's talk a bit about that integrity thing, because I think a lot of marriages get in trouble here when one of us is perhaps doing things that we are not sharing with our spouse, that we're not being open and honest about. How do we build integrity into our lives?

And if we're getting off track, how do we get back on track? It's sort of a catch-22, isn't it? Because integrity is really based upon intentional accountability. You know, that you have to take steps toward being open and being accountable, so you're not a hider. You're not trying to hide your motives or what you intend to do.

And so when you say to one another, you have to work on keeping your promises with each other. Where are you going to be? Were you there? What are you going to do? Did you do it? You promised to follow through on this.

Did you follow through? And so it's sort of a moral predictability based upon consistent behavior, and you've got to be willing to be held accountable. So it begins by expressing that, look, here's not only what I'm going to do, but here's my intentions behind that. And so that builds trust and confidence.

But it begins by me taking the initiative that I make a promise, and by all I break my neck to fulfill that promise, if at all possible, and that I'm accountable for my behavior. And my wife should see that. Your husband should see that. And there's nothing underneath the table.

Everything is above board and right on top of the table. Yeah, I think that's so important in a marriage relationship, because in my counseling through the years, I'm sure you've seen this, whenever we start doing things and we're not sharing them with our spouse, and they're not involved, it puts a wedge between us. We're conscious of something that they're not aware of, and then we've got to be thinking about, I don't want to say anything that will let them know, and we get into hiding mode, and it goes downhill from there. Yeah, I had a mentor tell me this, and I was back in my early 20s, and I'll never forget it.

He said to me, Crawford, what you do not only has to be right, but it has to look right. Now again, you can go too far with that, but I think that should be true in marriage. It's not how close you can get to the edge in terms of your behavior or that kind of thing, but I don't ever want to do anything that would cause my children or my wife to second guess my character, my morality, or anything. I think that adds to trust, and so if you live that way over many years in your marriage, you just bring that other person closer to your heart, because they'll never second guess what your motives are.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's talk a little bit about conflict. You mentioned that earlier, and we know that all couples have conflict. The conflicts that are important, how do we process those? We differ on it. We both feel strongly about it.

What are some of the elements in processing and finding a solution? Well, I think that the very first thing is that you need to sit down and talk with each other, but you need to do that in an environment where the heat has gone down some. Sometimes you have to call a time out and allow yourself and realize how the other person responds.

Not everybody responds the same way. Karen would say that she, over the first part of our marriage, she was a stuffer. In other words, she would internalize things and that kind of thing.

Then it would build up and this sort of thing. She would say that I didn't stuff things too much, so I would just come right out with it. But over the course of our marriage, we have moved more toward each other, because we understand how the other person responds and what their needs are, and so it's changed us. But I think when we have these issues, you have to figure out where are you, calm down, and then you have to schedule a time, not procrastinate, where you can talk this thing through. Let the other person talk and you listen without making comment, without interrupting them, and try to understand how they feel. Then you take your turn to express your side or how you see this issue or what has happened without being accusatory, but letting that person know how you feel about it. That's been helpful to us.

If you can work it out, it's varying degrees. Often we say in the book that you have to figure out what you're going to do about it, because conflict doesn't just solve itself because you've talked about it. Figure out what you're going to do, so you need to have a plan of action at the end of that conversation. Sometimes you need a third party to step in because you've lost your bit of objectivity and maybe you're missing each other on the communication side.

If that's the case, get a third party. Swallow your pride. Humility is your ally and friend in these things.

You have to have a long-range view. You want to solve the issue and you want to keep pursuing oneness and resolve the conflict. Sometimes people come to my office in a conflict situation. They're looking for a third person, but they come each with the attitude, I want you to tell him or tell her that they're wrong.

They just bring the conflict to the office. I think what you just said earlier is really an important part of the process, and that is we have to intentionally try to understand what the other person's thinking and what they're feeling and affirm that, because in their mind it makes sense. Just like in your mind, your side makes sense.

That's right. I think one of the hardest things in our relationship, I thought I was a good listener when we first married and then quickly found out that I was a horrible listener. Listening is difficult, and not listening in order to build your case and to shoot down that other person's argument, but to listen to their hearts and to realize that that person sitting across from you from a human perspective is all you have in this world. If they are hurt and if they are angry about something, you need to find out why they're feeling that way and value their feelings and value their personhood.

That's been helpful. Karen and I don't argue nearly as much as we used to. Every once in a while we'll get into one, which just reminds us we're still human. It gets the juices flowing, but it's so important to get beyond the disagreement and to affirm the heart of the person that you're committed to. Crawford, we've been talking about a lot of aspects of marriage, but I know that there are couples who are listening, or individuals maybe, who are listening out there, and their marriage is not on track. They're not pleased with it. They've got children in the home. They're not pleased with what the children are seeing and hearing. We talk about the impact in the next generation, and they're feeling like, you know, I'm not making a positive impact here. What would you say to that couple that's really struggling?

Oh man, I think there's so many things. I think the first place to begin is to grab each other's by the hand and slip to your knees and confess that to the Lord, that Lord, we're not where we need to be, and we need you to help us and to help us to move the ball down the field and make a commitment to the Lord and ask Him to show you what you need to do. Then secondly, I think what you need to do is that, you know, all leadership in the Bible has to do with being the portrait of the desired destination. In other words, ask God to show you who you need to be as a person, as a couple in that family, and what you need to model to each other and to your children. And take a look at your own heart. What about your own spiritual disciplines?

What about your own vibrancy when it comes to your walking relationship with the Lord? And then the other thing is, you know, take a long heart assessment in terms of how are you making decisions? How are you related to one another? What are those areas in your marriage or in your family that needs to be addressed? And there are great resources out there, you know, all kinds of resources related to the family. Some of the resources, Gary, you have written that Karen and I have lived by.

And there are other things, other ministries like Family Life where you can go and get those resources. And I would attend one of your marriage conferences or one of these many other marriage conferences. Whatever you need to do, you need to get an action plan once you discover what those issues are, or areas that need to be addressed and developed, and be aggressive about it. Even if you have to apologize to your children about, we have not made the right decisions, or we've not been the right person, or you've got to apologize to your spouse. Make the apology, but apologizing is not change. Change comes when you take steps. And so find out what it is that you need to do.

Go to a pastor, go to someone that you admire, maybe an older couple or whatever, and ask them to help guide you to what you need to do in order to get strength in those areas of weakness. Well, I think if we can do that, if couples can do that, you know, rather than just rocking on, it's taking action, and I fully agree with what you're saying. If it's sharing a book together, or as you say, going to a conference together, but taking some steps to make it different. Touch just a little bit on some of the key needs of a wife and some of the key needs of a husband. Yeah, you know, we both write about this, and this is where I wish Karen was on the line with me, but you know, a wife needs, there are a number of needs that she has.

Let me just click off four of them. I think, now everybody needs unconditional love, but I think our wives, women need for us to express that unconditional love in very direct, meaningful ways. They need their hearts filled with love to know that they don't have to perform for our favor, our approval, or anything, but that we love them. And so unconditional love is one. Secondly, it's understanding. First Peter chapter 3 verse 7, Peter says, Husbands, dwell with your wives or live with your wives in an understanding way.

You know, we make jokes about that. We say, well, you can't understand a woman. Well, I know some men that it's hard to understand too, but the issue there is pressing forward and connecting with heart empathy and seeking to understand her and spending time with her to know what makes her tick and what are her dreams, what are her ambitions, what are her fears, what are those things that she likes or dislikes. And I think thoroughly for a woman it's to provide for her, to know that she's being cared for. And I don't mean that you have to be a multimillionaire or anything like that, but that you're doing all that you possibly can to make sure that your household is being taken care of, that you're not being passive in your leadership as a man, that you're being intentional about paying attention to your children, your wife, and what those financial needs are and how you can provide for them.

And I think trust, and we've talked a bit about this already, but women need to know that they can trust you, that you're walking in the light, that there's not a hidden agenda and that you're not saying one thing and doing another, that you are indeed trustworthy. And so I think that those are a few of the needs that a wife has. How about on the husband side?

Yeah, the Egridges have written a wonderful book called Love and Respect. Now, husbands need to be respected, and let me quickly back off and say everybody needs to be respected. Wives need to be respected. But men in a very particular way, the way we're made, we need to know that there's that one person that we've committed ourselves to who respects us, will not run us down, will not be dismissive of us, will not talk about us negatively around their girlfriends or family members or this kind of thing. Respect is big. I think secondly is support. Now, not that you agree with your husband and this kind of thing.

We have some young interns. We do a residence program at church with young pastors, and often they will say something like this to me. Well, Crawford, does your wife give you honest feedback?

And I say to them, son, you have no idea. So when I say support, I don't mean that you don't say what needs to be said. But at the end of the day, a man needs to know that there's one person in the world that is with him, and that's his wife. And I think associated with that is encouragement. You know, I actually believe, Gary, you wrote the book on five love languages, but I actually believe that every man somewhere along the line has a little bit, if not a big need for words of affirmation. Encouragement is huge to a man, especially coming from his wife. And then I think also the gift of loyalty.

Loyalty is important to most men, particularly that person you're married to, your wife, to realize that she believes that you are number one in her heart and in her mind, and he feels that, and that's expressed to him. Well, that's a great word for all of us. This hour has gone quickly, and I really appreciate your being with us today, Crawford. And be sure and tell Karen how much we appreciate her including this book.

Oh, thank you. You do the same with Carolyn. Love and appreciate you, my brother.

Yeah, her voice has been strong in the book. So thanks for being with us. We'll look forward to seeing you somewhere along the line. Okay, thank you, Gary. Well, I hope our conversation has encouraged you in your marriage, and maybe this resource will bring you closer together and provide some vision for the future The title of the book by Crawford and Karen Loritz is Your Marriage Today and Tomorrow, making your relationship matter now and for generations to come. Go to FiveLoveLanguages.com to find out more FiveLoveLanguages.com And next week, I'll take your questions about marriage, parenting, dating, and a lot more. Don't miss our Dear Gary broadcast for October in one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd, Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.