Dear Gary | October

Manipulation, light deflection, how do you deal with that in a marriage? My daughter-in-law has given up and is ready to walk out.

He had an indiscretion where he cheated on me. I am at my wit's end. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" . Today it's our Dear Gary broadcast for October.

Time to open the phone lines and hear your questions about the love languages, your marriage, singles issues and more. I am excited to hear you present your questions to Dr. Chapman today. If you want to be on a future broadcast, call us at 1-866-424-GARY. Write that number down. Call us.

When you're not in your car and we can't hear anything going on around you, 1-866-424-GARY. Each week we have a featured resource and today it's a book that released earlier this month. It's titled Your New Life with Adult Children, a practical guide for what helps, what hurts and what heals.

Find out more at buildingrelationships.us. And Gary, this is a book you wrote, the original version I think came out a number of years ago. You wrote it with Dr. Ross Campbell. Is that right?

That is correct, Chris. Dr. Campbell, you may remember, was a psychiatrist. And he came to me, he had written several books, but he came to me and said, Gary, we need to write something for parents of adult children.

And so we did. And this is a revision of that because that, as you said, it was a number of years ago. So a lot of new things in this book because the situation is very different today. I'm finding more and more parents who are struggling with, you know, how do I respond? I just found out this about my young adult child or now they've moved back and just, you know, all kinds of things are going on today in this area. So this book, I think, is going to help a lot of parents who have adult children and are trying to learn how do I process all the changes that are taking place here and the way our relationship is developing.

I'm not real happy about this. So yeah, that's why we decided to revise the book and update the book. So I think it's going to be helpful to a lot of parents. Do you deal with things like when your adult child gets a divorce and the struggle there with the grandchildren? Or what about when your adult children have distance between you?

I don't mean they move across the country. They don't talk to you anymore. Do you deal with any of that? Yes, yes, yes.

All of those things and more. I had a man say the other day, I said, I have not had a conversation with my adult daughter for three years. She doesn't respond. I try to call her.

I send her notes, but she never responds. Yeah, that plus the fact that they often are moving back home at finished college and move home and don't have any plans. Ooh, that's hard. So yeah, we deal with basically all the things that I've heard in the last few years here from parents about what's going on. We deal with all of those in the book. Your New Life with Adult Children is the title. Again, you can find out more at buildingrelationships.us.

Let me follow up one more thing. The number one mistake, I don't know if you could boil it down, but what comes to your mind when you think of mistakes that parents are making with their adult children? I think one is failing to recognize that they are adults and we cannot control their lives as much as we would like to, as it were, make them do this, that or the other thing.

We can't do that. Just like God does not control his children. Remember, his first two children went wrong, Adam and Eve, and so we have to give them the same freedom that God gives us.

I think that's one of the most common things is just simply not recognizing that. What we want to do is what God does. We want to keep our arms open, ready to work through whatever the difficulties may be. If we have an open heart and we want to love them, just like God loves us, even when we're doing wrong, we want to love them and not cut them off to be sure. They may cut us off, but we're not going to cut them off.

We're going to keep our arms open and our hearts open. What a redemptive book and a practical one that will hit at the heart of any parent with adult children or who have children who will be adults one day. You can find out more about that at the website buildingrelationships.us. The title again, Your New Life with Adult Children, a practical guide for what helps, what hurts and what heals.

Again, go to buildingrelationships.us. All right, it's time for your calls. Let's begin with a marriage struggle that many are going through today.

Hi, Gary. I just have a quick question here. My husband and I have recently separated and in hopes of reconciliation, but the Bible is a little unclear about other forms of abuse, specifically like emotional abuse, not verbal, but emotional like manipulation, like deflection. How do you deal with that in a marriage when you feel so incredibly just taken for granted and what you have to say is not valued is coming from two believers? It really just erodes, I think, on a woman's position in a marriage and that is ultimately what's gotten me to this point. I have seriously considered divorce because it is just incredibly difficult to be in a position like this, but I know about physical abuse.

I know about verbal abuse, calling names and such, but all I see in the Bible is that adultery and death can separate a man and a woman, but I have gotten so deeply wounded by his promises to change and having a little bit of change here and there, but then regressing back to his old behavior of deflection and defensiveness and invalidation that has brought me to this point, so I would just love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you. Well, Chris, I want to thank this caller for sharing her heart because there are a lot of folks who can identify with this caller and I have great empathy for a person who has gone through this kind of relationship and sometimes for a long period of time. She doesn't say how long she's been in this, but I can understand the feeling of the best things just to get out. I don't ever want to encourage divorce. I think we need to make every effort we can to redeem a marriage, and God's in the business of redemption.

And I don't know if this caller has been for counseling or not, but this is the kind of situation that calls for Christian counseling. She says that they're separated at the moment with hopes for reconciliation, and that always should be the hope if a Christian separates for any kind of abuse, the hope ought to be that there can be reconciliation. And that means, first of all, we don't get involved with someone else in the meantime while we're separated.

But I would say that wife to say to the husband, I don't know how you feel about us, but obviously I'm very distraught. I'm willing to work on our marriage. And if you're willing to go for counseling, I will go with you, or you can go begin by yourself, or we can go and share together our problem, and then you work with a counselor on that problem, and let's see what progress we can make.

Because it will not change just with the passing of time. We don't get better just with passing time. We get better by getting help and making some decisions to change our behavior, and to deal with our emotions and the internal things that are going on in our heart and our mind, and coming to understand ourselves and why we're doing what we're doing. Listen, all of us need help, and some of us need more help than others, but we all need help. So I'm just grateful that she's keeping open to the possibility of reconciliation.

And I think there can be reconciliation. So if her husband's willing, and often it's a separation thing that wakes a husband up, or it could be a wife, wakes them up to the reality, oh, this is bad. I've got to get help.

I've got to get help. And consequently, they will reach out for help, whereas before the separation, they were not willing to reach out for help. So I would just pray that she would take that kind of step and invite him to take that kind of step with her, and obviously praying that God will work in his heart and make him open to that.

As you say, you cannot control, though. He has the response that he has, and you've got to deal with what is. But what I hear you saying is, if she says to him, I'm struggling with us, and instead of running away from you, I want to move toward you because I care about you and I care about us, that that might open the door of his heart to respond in a different way than he's been responding.

Yeah, that's exactly right, Chris. Rather than the approach that says, I'm sick and tired of you, and I'm out of here. Well, that's not a way to be leaving. You want to leave with an attitude of love, not with an attitude of hatred and frustration and anger.

It makes all the difference. If you're going to separate, it makes all the difference how you separate and why you separate. Our featured resource today is the book that might be just what you need. It's titled Your New Life with Adult Children, a practical guide for what helps, what hurts, and what heals.

You can find out more at the website buildingrelationships.us. We love it when you respond to questions that come up here on the program. And a few dear Garys ago, we took a call about someone who had a hearing difficulty and a family member who was trying to love that person well called.

Here's a response to that conversation. My thoughts are perhaps he's also suffering depression. It would be not just discouraging, but I would imagine depressing with losing your hearing. You're not hearing the subtle things that other people are hearing. You're not catching the jokes, maybe, and just knowing that things are not going to get better. The other thing is that frequently, men experience depression as anger rather than sadness.

That's just the thought that I had. Well I want to thank this caller for calling in in response to a question we had some time ago where the husband was suffering from lack of hearing. He was moving toward being deaf, but he was expressing anger in his life. She's saying, look behind the scenes what's going on here. You know, because often, for example, if you can't hear in a conversation, it's very frustrating.

Other people are interfacing, you can't hear what they're saying. And sometimes it leads to depression, this caller is saying. She's exactly right. You just get kind of down on your situation. You're thinking, it's never going to get any better.

I can't hear what's going on. And often it's expressed in anger, and you get upset because they're expressing anger and maybe lashing out with words. Whereas in reality, it may be depression behind the scenes.

They're just so disturbed. And yes, anger is one of the ways that when life just seems so distressing and so pressured, that we do lash out in anger. So yeah, it's trying to look behind the scenes to why the person is behaving the way they're behaving. And that's true not only in a situation where the person is hearing impaired, but there are a lot of other situations that people are going through physically and mentally, that if you look behind the scenes to see what is going on that's causing this behavior, you will find out it's not that they were totally angry with you. They're just angry with life and the way they feel life is treating them. So it's a good reminder to all of us to look behind the scenes that is behind the behavior of the person to ask, where is this coming from? Because it's always coming from something. And the more we understand that, the better we will be able to process it.

I think that's a good relational tip for anybody, whether you're married or single, you're in any kind of relationships at church or at work. And there comes a person who shows anger or it's like, well, that was a little over the top rather than saying, well, that's just, you know, Bill and he's mad at everything. Ask the harder, the deeper question.

I wonder what's going on here. I wonder, you know, so in that you have empathy and you move toward that person rather than just judging them. Ah, he's angry again.

That's the way he always is. Um, you, you try to understand, not that you solve every problem and every anger outburst on people who are driving on the road, but you, you look like you say, look behind it. Yeah, I think that's really important for all of us because we're all facing people who seem to be out of control here and there. And sometimes we get out of control from time to time. So if you look behind the scenes and ask, you know, what's going on here, uh, you may, you may find an openness on their part even to discuss it depending on your relationship. But to say, you know, I know this is not you, that this is not, this is not who you are. And I'm just wondering, you know, what's going on that's, that's, that's stimulating you in this way. The harder thing to do is to look at yourself. And I get angry like that. It's like, I always slow down. What's going on? You know, I was really here. And it may be that relationship that you have with an adult child.

There's something going on and you can't put your finger on it. And that's why Gary has written this new updated book with Dr. Ross Campbell, Your New Life with Adult Children, a practical guide for what helps, what hurts and what heals. It's our featured resource.

Just go to buildingrelationships.us. All right, this, uh, program Building Relationships is not a Bible question hour, but we often deal with topics that do deal with the theological. And at some point in a previous Dear Gary, the topic of baptism came up.

Here's our next caller. I'm a Catholic priest and I have a comment. Uh, you, you were talking about baptism and that it's just a sign. You said it needs to be done before for witnessing.

I think you forgot about when Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch in, in the desert area and it was just he and the Ethiopian that he, that they were alone and he baptized him. So, uh, I believe baptism isn't just a sign. It's an encounter with the Holy Spirit, with, with the Trinity.

Thank you. Well, I appreciate this priest calling in and sharing that perspective. You know, Jesus, of course, was baptized himself by John the Baptist. And it was certainly a spiritual thing because the spirit descended like a dove.

The voice said, this is my son, you know, whom I'm well pleased, et cetera, et cetera. I think, however, in, uh, in the New Testament, as we follow out with the teachings of Jesus, baptism is a sign that we, it's an outward, invisible expression that we have died to the old life, which was a self-centered life and we were raised to a new life. So it's not just a testimony to people who might be in the congregation. It's a physical expression of what's happening to us spiritually.

Not many baptisms take place with just a baptizer and one person being baptized and no one else. He gives a biblical illustration where that took place to be sure, but it's not that we're doing it for the benefit of those who are watching. We're doing it as a physical symbol of a spiritual relationship that we now have with Christ, that we have died to the old self-centered life and we're resurrected to the new life of following Christ.

So I don't think we're far off on that, uh, because I was not trying to communicate that we're doing it for the benefit of those who are watching. We're doing it really in obedience to what Christ said, because he said, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So we're following what Jesus taught. I looked up the Moody Bible commentary on that before the program today. And in the New Testament, what you see, especially in the book of Acts, is you identify with Christ, boom, you get baptized.

You know, it's like it happened then that it was an almost an immediate thing. And in Acts chapter eight is where this conversion happens when Philip is going down the road and he comes upon this Ethiopian eunuch. Well, an angel of the Lord speaks to him and tells him, go over there. And the eunuch is reading Isaiah and he's, he's reading, he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb is silent before its shearer so he does not open his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who will describe his generation for his life is taken from the earth? And the eunuch said to Philip, who's he talking about?

That's my version, the favorite version. And Philip then tells him the good news about Jesus and about from the Old Testament all the way down and what happened to him. And the eunuch says, look, there's water.

What would keep me from being baptized? And so that's the, that's the context of what happens right there, that there's not a big crowd, didn't bother God at all. This was a, as you said, a response from this is what I believe now. I've trusted fully in Jesus and this is my outward expression with me and you, Philip. And I like that. I like that, you know, the immediacy of that whole thing, don't you? Oh, absolutely, Chris. It's, it's, it's powerful.

And I think normally baptism typically does follow rather quickly after we have made that personal decision to receive Christ as our Savior and Lord. Yeah. And it is encouraging to those around who are, are seeing that as well. So thank you to our caller for that question. Now another call from a wife who is dealing with a marriage that feels beyond hope.

Hi, Gary. I didn't know I was dealing with something called sex addiction. I am at my wit's end.

My faith is pretty much on a thread. The bottom line is what ended up happening between pornography, lying, the deceiving is the worst part. Apparently a tremendous amount of gaslighting, even to the point where I got help, because I was convinced I was the problem.

The church basically ran the other way when I exposed what had gone on when there was actually sex with somebody at work, a patient actually. Then it got worse. Then we did every course, counseling, deliverance, inpatient treatment in the last two years when this all came about.

We moved back in together this February after a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of pain over a decade. This time it's just hit me differently. And I don't know what to do. I don't know what kind of help is out there. I've never felt so shafted by the Christian community.

Nobody wants to deal with sexual immorality or how bad it is. After 10 years, do I jump out? Is there any hope? Is my marriage over?

I think it is. I can't hear, pray through this and do this more and join a Praying Lives Club. I've done it all.

You name it, I've done it. We really need help badly. I'm his third wife. He's my first marriage.

I got married at 42. And I feel trapped and hopeless. And it's hard for me to even pray. And I just don't know if there's any hope, or if I'm stuck. So that's it. Thanks.

Bye. Well, you have to feel empathy for this caller, because it seems like she feels like she's gone through everything she can to try to find healing from infidelity in a marriage. And apparently, she felt she had made some progress or they had made some progress or she would not have moved back in, you know, two years ago.

But here she is now two years later. And what she doesn't make clear and what I don't know is, has he gone back to infidelity or has he gone back to pornography, which in a sense is infidelity. The Bible says you're looking at a woman lusting after her.

Jesus uses the word adultery. So I don't know, you know, what has happened in these two years in terms of his behavior. But if he in fact has reverted to some of that, you can certainly understand the pain and the hurt and the sense of hopelessness that she has. And I don't know where the feeling came from her that the church had deserted her or the church was not helpful to her.

I don't know all that happened in that situation, to be sure. But I would say before she makes a decision just to get out, it would be far more likely to be productive if he and she will go to a Christian counselor. I don't know what they've done in the past, but to go to a Christian counselor who can help them begin to process this and where they go from here. And if he will not go with her, then I definitely would suggest she go by herself. Don't make a decision to just bail out of the marriage relationship without having a Christian counselor help you think through what you're doing, why you're doing it and how to do it. So those would be my thoughts.

If he is sexually involved with other people, though, she does have to protect herself in the marriage from disease, sexually transmitted diseases, those types of things. That would be a good place to be. Good question to ask, right? Yeah, absolutely. And that's what a counselor would discern rather early on is what is he doing presently, since they've come back together?

Because that's all important to be sure. The cry of her heart, Gary, that I heard most clearly, I feel trapped and hopeless. That's a really hard place to be, isn't it? Well, it is, Chris.

And you can understand why a person can get there. You know, she was 42 when she got married, never been married before, married a man that had been married twice before. She's his third wife. And then he behaves in the manner he has behaved, which apparently was pornography and then actual sexual intercourse with someone other than his wife. And I don't know what happened during the time they were separated.

I don't know what kind of process they went through. But then if they came back, there must have been some hope in her mind when they moved back together two years ago. But now if he's reverted to the same lifestyle, I mean, there's a place for the Christian to say, I love you too much to sit here and do nothing and simply watch you do what I know is wrong. So there's a place for tough love. This is The Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman Podcast. Thanks for listening and for telling others about the conversations we have here. When you go to FiveLoveLanguages.com, you can find more ways to strengthen your relationships.

Just click the resources tab and you'll find the podcast there and our featured resource, Your New Life with Adult Children, a practical guide for what helps, what hurts and what heals. Again, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Here's an interesting question from a mom who's read your books, but wonders about an individual using the love language concept for her own mental health. Gary, I've read multiple books that you've published. I have a teenager and I'm noticing there's a lack due to some mental health issues going on for the love language for yourself. And I wondered if that's something you had thought about or considered.

Two things come to my mind, Chris, when I hear that question. I'm not sure that I fully understand it, but as a parent, we discover our teenager's primary love language and that concept and so we're reaching out to make sure they feel loved. We also need to help our teenager understand mother has a love tank. Mother has a need for love too and mother's love language is this so that that teenager can learn.

Love is a two-way process and every teenager needs to learn how to love their parents in a meaningful way. The other thing that she may have been alluding to is how do I meet my need to feel loved if I'm not in a loving relationship with a husband or wife or anyone else with a close relationship. And what I would say is I wrote a book called God Speaks Your Love Language, in which I'm talking about the fact that God speaks all five love languages fluently. And so whatever this lady's primary love language is, if she spends some time in the scriptures or might start with my book because my book is based on the scriptures, you'll see that God loves you deeply and God speaks your love language on a regular basis.

I wrote another book called Seeing Known and Loved. God sees you, God knows you and God loves you. So when we feel like nobody else loves us, we can discover for sure God loves us and he loves us and he speaks that love in our love language. And I think many people have found spiritual healing in the reality of God's love for them because we often speak of God's love as just kind of a broad category. But in reality, God speaks all five of the love languages very, very fluently.

And if we simply will think about it, we can see God's love being expressed to us. Again, if you'd like to ask a question of Dr. Gary Chapman, our number is 1-866-424-GARY. Our next question might be one that you address in your book, Your New Life with Adult Children. Here's a mom-in-law's cry of the heart. So I do have an issue that my parents-in-law are struggling with.

He's been neglectful for the last couple of years and my daughter-in-law has given up and is ready to walk out. So I need to know how to minister to them. I have encouragement. My daughter-in-law's heart has been hardened. I just need to know how to help them and if to help them with my words of wisdom or pray for them.

So I appreciate your help. I hear this as a mother who obviously is brokenhearted, as it were, because her daughter-in-law is at the point of leaving her son. They're married and she's ready to give up on the marriage. And the mother's asking, how do I reach out to deal in this situation? I think, first of all, she does ask God to give her wisdom on how to respond in that situation. I don't know if the daughter-in-law is even open to a conversation with her, but if they have a relationship where she can say to the daughter-in-law, why don't you share with me your pain and what has led you to this decision? I don't know if I can be of help or not, but I deeply empathize with you.

Obviously you're hurting deeply. It may be if she has that kind of relationship that that daughter-in-law will open up to her and will tell her why she has come to the place where she is, which may involve some things that her husband and the son of this lady who called in has done or has not done that has brought her to this place. On the other hand, of course, it could be that the daughter-in-law is suffering from things that have happened in her past life, and she's now struggling with things that she's never resolved.

So there's no way of knowing what's going on in that couple's life. But I think as a mother and as a mother-in-law, we need to keep an open heart and an open mind and let them know that we love them, that if there's anything we can do to help them, we would be happy to do it. For example, we might offer to pay for their counseling if they're in a situation where they say, well, we can't go for counseling.

We don't have enough money to do that. Offer to pay for that or offer to help them find a Christian counselor if they would be willing to go. That would certainly be a positive thing, if they were open to it. But I think mainly it's not writing them off and not writing your daughter-in-law off, but doing everything you can to let her know that you love her. And if there's anything you can do to help, you want to help. Again, we can't control what your son does and we can't control what your daughter-in-law does, but we can let them know that we love them and we want to help them if they're open to help. So you do deal with this in the new book that you have published, Your New Life with Adult Children. This is one of the big topics that parents are dealing with, right?

Absolutely, Chris. There are all kinds of things that our adult children are doing, are involved in. In this case, it's a marriage that's having problems that as we as adults and as parents, we want the best for our children.

If they're married, we want them to have a good marriage. Sometimes we don't know how to approach, what to do, what not to do, and we can end up preaching to them, you know, which is not going to help because it comes across as condemnation. What they need is to have empathy.

Tell me, honey, what brought you to this place? And you listen to them and you can empathize with them and you can say, I can see how you'd get to that place, you know. I wonder, however, is there something we can do that's better than just divorcing? Would you be open to going to see a counselor?

If so, I'd be glad to pay for it if that's a problem, if finances is a problem. So it's being empathetic and not writing them off or condemning them for, you know, even thinking about divorce. Yeah, it sounds like this mom of the daughter-in-law, son and daughter-in-law has really thought through this well and is struggling with this, but it's in that struggle that sometimes your heart comes through to the other person where you don't, you're not just pushing your, what you think ought to happen here and don't do this or do do that, but your heart really comes out, your heart of love. So I think that would be a help to you if you read the new book, Your New Life with Adult Children. It's our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us. All right, Gary, here's another call before we take a quick break from a wife in a crisis.

Hi, Gary. I have been with my husband for 15 years. Currently, we are undergoing a crisis program. A couple years ago now, he had an indiscretion where he cheated on me, and we hadn't been able to really recover from that. After that, he was gone on deployment.

And then when he came back, I saw that he was watching porn. But this counselor essentially gave him an ultimatum to decide whether he wanted to be in this relationship or not, because he thinks that I'm the source of all of his problems, even though I am not. Essentially, this counselor is giving him the option to get out of this marriage and to work on himself in that direction. But I wouldn't want to go through another separation.

So one last thing that happened, I was away this last week. When I came back, my husband had lied and actually cheated with somebody. I confronted him about it. He said that he wanted a divorce. And that's why this counselor gave him the ultimatum because he thinks that if he's lying and actually not doing what he says he's going to do, then there's no point in him wanting to be in this marriage. Obviously, he's going to run away. He loves to avoid everything that's conflictive. And to him, the situation right now is to just get rid of me and get rid of the program.

I don't know. I don't know if this counselor is the right fit for us. We have a few sessions left of the program, but I'm scared that he is doing a disservice to our relationship instead of actually showing my husband the nurturing way toward getting the meaning of marriage because my husband was really good at some point. And unfortunately, I think I'm the one who really contributed to him feeling low because out of desperation, I also was very insulting and aggressive a lot of the times where I couldn't get through to him. And so now he feels a lot of rejection from me. And this is his way of getting validation and affirmation from other sources.

I'm just concerned that him pushing him to decide whether he's in our marriage or not, the next four days during the most stressful time of his life is not the way to go. But I have also prayed to God that this program would come to fruition. So I'm not sure I'm just confused. But I wanted to see what your take is regarding this counselor's approach.

Thank you. Well, you know, Chris, it's hard to make a judgment on the counselor that she's talking about, because I don't know, you know, the full story there. I do understand her to be saying that he cheated on her. And then as he was involved with somebody else sexually, then he was deployed, a military deployment, came back, and then he was on porn.

And then they've gone to see a counselor. And then when she was out of town for a while last week or whatever, he cheated on her again, got involved with somebody else again. And so the counselor is suggesting to him that maybe he needs to divorce because he's lying to her about it, and he's being unfaithful to her about it. It may well be the counselor is trying to keep her from having to continue in a relationship in which he's been unfaithful twice, plus the porn. And she's saying, you know, it seems to me he's never going to be faithful. He's lying. So why would you even want to stay with him? So I don't know where the counselor's coming from.

And I can't really comment on that. But I do hear her saying that she wants to work on the marriage. She said she doesn't know if she should continue in this particular program because the counselor is encouraging him to leave and divorce her. But I think her desire and her prayer, she said to God, for wisdom on what she should do.

It seems to me she has a desire to work on the marriage in spite of all that she's gone through, which I would admire that about her, that she's willing to work on the marriage, wants to work on the marriage. But again, I would say to her, remember, you can't control your husband. You can't make him not divorce you. If that is in fact what he decides to do, basically you have to accept the reality that people can make wrong decisions or poor decisions and trust God to walk you through through that process. So it's a very, very difficult situation and there's no easy answer to it. I don't know if the counselor he's seeing is a Christian and I don't know if he's a Christian. Don't know if you're a Christian, though I got the sense that you perhaps are. The best alternative, I think, in a situation like this is both of you be seeing a Christian counselor who has a Christian worldview and who will try to help you draw on the power of God to change behaviors so that you can have the marriage that both of you wanted to have.

Because she said that there have been periods in which he was good. He did a lot of good things and they enjoyed life together. So certainly keep open to that and maybe ask him if he'd be willing to go to a Christian counselor with you. But again, keep in mind you cannot control him.

You cannot make him work on the marriage and you cannot keep him from filing for divorce if that's what he chooses to do. And in that case, rely on God. Ask God to help you as you walk through this. It's very, very painful and it's not what you want.

But ask God to walk with you through the process and to give you wisdom in how to respond. All right, Gary, this question did not come in from a listener. This is my own question.

I could disguise my voice, but I'll just ask you. The election's a week and a half away. Big election.

Maybe biggest that we've ever had. That's what I hear every four years. And it's true.

You know, it's important. I've never heard you tell anybody for whom to vote. You've never told me who I ought to vote for. And I'm not going to ask you, who should I vote for, Gary? I want you to talk about voting and relationships.

All the contention, all the rancor, friends, workmates, the yard signs, even spouses. Talk about that and what you would suggest as we move forward. Well, you know, Chris, first of all, I think we should be thankful that we have an opportunity to vote. Because there are countries where people don't vote on their leaders. The leaders were established by an overthrow of the government beforehand. And it's a dictatorship. And that's the way it operates. But in America, we have the chance to vote on our leaders.

Therefore, it's extremely important that we examine what the leaders stand for. And so I think many people have been doing that. They've been thinking the situation.

They've been looking at the different platforms on which people are running. And I think as Christians, we want to choose a person who has a platform, who has ideas that are more in keeping with the scriptures and God's pattern for life. I don't ever say, you know, you should vote for this person or that person, I think.

But I think we should look as closely as we can at what the person or persons, because there's many different, it's not just a presidential election, there's many other people that are running for office, is to look at what their platform is, what they say that they believe in, and their past to see if they have followed those things in the past. We want to be faithful. And I think the other thing is to pray. Ask God to give us wisdom on whom we should vote for in every office. God is sovereign.

I mean, the scriptures talk about God raises up a king and God gets rid of a king. But we're also a part of the process that God uses. And we just want to be faithful as a Christian to take time to know who we're voting for, and know as much as we can about them, and to vote for the person that we think is going to be most closely aligned with biblical principles of what is right and what is wrong.

That's my basic thrust and basic challenge to the Christian. The greatest example of what you are talking about then, about getting along with each other after we do vote, is my dad and his brother. Because at the time when I was a kid, I didn't know which was a Republican and which was a Democrat, but they were different parties. And they would meet at the courthouse or the elementary school where they voted. And my uncle was one of the precinct captains. I think he was a Democratic Party precinct captain. And he would look at my dad and he'd say, hello, Republican.

My dad would say, hello, Democrat. And they would cancel each other's vote out, you know, just about every time. But they had a, you know, they disagreed. They had deep disagreements about one thing or another, but they still loved each other and they still communicated with each other. And they ate musk melon together and watermelon. My uncle had the greatest, biggest watermelon patch you ever did see.

I had no idea how he did that. But it's like, I love you too much to let all of the political come between us. And it doesn't seem like we're there anymore.

You know, maybe this is pie in the sky for me to even talk about it. But I long for that to be able to get to get along together with people that we disagree with. Yeah, I think that's so key.

And you're right. It's largely lacking in our society today. It's like we want to destroy the persons that we disagree with. And especially if we're Christians, I mean, you know, we're brothers and sisters. Christians are brothers and sisters.

And we're in this same thing. And our identity is not with a political party. Our identity is we are children of the living God.

And we must never allow our identity to be determined by a person's political position. We're children of God. And we're seeking to live best we know how day by day following the principles of God. And that, yeah, that affects the way we vote.

That affects the way we do everything. But if somebody disagrees with us, they are humans, whether they're Christians or not, and they are made in the image of God. And we must respect each other as humans and give each other freedom to be, you know, make choices. God gives us that freedom.

Adam and Eve were God's children. They made a poor choice that affected everything and still affects us. But God gives humans the freedom to make choices. And we must give people the freedom to make choices, even if they're choices that we think are very, very poor choices. And we must treat people with dignity and respect. We're never going to win the world to Christ by being disrespectful to humans who disagree with us. The most important thing is, do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ? That's what the Christian's main job is. Yes, we want to be faithful citizens.

We want to make wise decisions in who we vote for. And we want to pray that God will guide the process to give us leaders that are going to be closer to a biblical pattern. But at the same time, we are going to treat people with love, because it's love that drew us to Christ. And it'll be love that draws people to Christ.

Not hatred, but love. And we're God's emissaries. We're to be light in the midst of darkness. And light shines by loving people, wherever they are, whatever they're doing, and seeking to point them to Christ. Because the ultimate longing of the human heart is to have a relationship with the God who's really there. Of course, in our culture, many people have even denied that there is a God. But the reality is, whether they believe in Him or not, there is a God, and that God loves them. And we are His ambassadors. I keep coming back to that sovereignty thing, Gary. Thank you for saying that.

That's a good answer. A good last question for our program here a week and a half before the election. And if you go to the website buildingrelationships.us, you'll see our featured resource for today, Your New Life with Adult Children, a practical guide for what helps, what hurts, and what heals. Just go to buildingrelationships.us.

And again, we'd love to hear your feedback. If you have a question for Dr. Chapman, call 1-866-424-GARY. Leave your message. You might hear an answer on a future broadcast. 1-866-424-4279. And next week, my friend Debbie Barr will talk about making a choice that sets you free.

Find out what that choice is in one week. A big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Backing. 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.