Empowered to Love | Bob Paul

Do you want to build a fulfilling, intimate marriage you and your spouse both love? Discover how today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman.

You've got to make sure you maintain focus on being fully the person God created you to be, whole and healthy, so you can bring your A-game to that relationship. And with that done, the two of you doing that, you can now build and invest in a marriage that will delight your hearts. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, instead of passively hoping that your marriage will change, our guest wants to help you and your spouse begin a journey of growing together and deepening your relationship. Dr. Bob Paul will join us today, and our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us is his book, Empowered to Love, Discovering Your God Given Power to Create a Marriage You Both Love.

Again, we have it linked at buildingrelationships.us. And Gary, I think our guest is speaking your love language. Listen, I'm all in with anybody that's talking about love and marriage, okay?

So I'm excited about our program today, looking forward to it. Well, let me introduce Dr. Robert Paul. Bob is vice president of the Focus Marriage Institute. He's an accomplished speaker and author. He was co-author with Drs. Gary and Greg Smalley of The DNA of Relationships for Couples and Nine Lies That Will Destroy Your Marriage, as well as many other books. He taught in the biblical studies and psychology departments at Evangel University.

He and his wife, Jenny, have been married more than 40 years, and they have four children, six grandchildren. His latest book is Empowered to Love. You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Well, Dr. Bob, welcome to Building Relationships. Oh, Gary, it's great to be with you. Now, for those who don't know of your work, tell us a little about you and what you do at Focus Marriage Institute. Well, you know, we started, I started this with Dr. Greg Smalley almost 26 years ago, and the Smalley family at that point were having a challenge. They needed to get some help with couples that were calling in that were really struggling, and I had some specialized training in what we call intensive therapy. So we built this program that is now, you know, 26 years later called Hope Restored. And we've worked with close to 15,000 couples from all over the world, generally in pretty severe crisis.

And we have an incredible success rate. And what we've it's been like a marriage laboratory. We've been learning consistently more about what God wants for marriage and how he's designed it. And the more we learn, the better it gets.

And what we've realized is that the things that work really well for couples that are in crisis work even better for couples that just want to go from good to great. So we've been doing all sorts of things to create events and books and so forth to get the information we've learned in as many people's hands as we possibly can. Now, these intensives that you do, where are they held? Well, we've got five locations in the US, and we've got three in Canada. In the US, we've got them in Georgia, in Branson, Missouri, in Michigan, in Arizona, and in Texas. And we have close to 100 therapists that are currently on the team, and it is just a delight to see God working miracles in people's lives. Where would our listeners go if they wanted to find out about this? Okay, on the Hope Restore side, HopeRestore.com will get you there, and you'll get information and contact information if you want to talk to one of our consultants to see if it's a program that would work for you.

Okay, HopeRestore.com. Now, you and Jenny have been married, as Chris said, for four decades. Has it been smooth sailing all this time for the two of you? Boy, do I wish I could say it has.

I, tongue in cheek, tell people frequently that I have been happily married for 14 years. It was just those first three decades that were really tough. And I mean, obviously, we had some wonderful times in raising our family and so forth, but we had some really dark, difficult seasons, and we needed some divine help on multiple occasions to get to the other side of it. And we've learned a lot through that. And what's amazing, Gary, is that now we've gotten to the point where not only do I get to go out and do events to share the news with people, but for the last eight years, Jenny has been by my side speaking with me, and we do enrichment events all over.

And it's amazing how much more credibility I get when she's there to tell the rest of the story. Well, you know, I think God often uses our own struggles in marriage, you know, to prepare us with a passion to want to help other couples. So I can identify with what you're saying, all right? So tell me why you wanted to write this particular book, this Empowered to Love.

You know, it's been a passion of mine for quite a few years, the content that's in this book, and it's been such a delight to be able to write it with my co-author, Dr. Tar Lalande, who is one of our Canadian therapists. And, you know, we just are so aware that God desperately wants us to be empowered. He doesn't want us to be sitting back, you know, twiddling our thumbs, feeling powerless.

He came and did so many things so that we would be able to experience power. And one of the things that we've realized is that in our culture, people frequently, when they get married, do what I call putting the cart before the horse. You know, they like in the unity candle, they light the center candle. They've got the two candles that represent them.

They light the center candle and they blow out those individual candles. And now it's all supposed to be about the marriage. But the reality is marriage doesn't exist apart from the people in it.

And it can never be healthier than the people. And Jesus came to die for people, not marriages. So we're saying for your marriage to be awesome, everything it was created to be, you got to make sure you maintain focus on being fully the person God created you to be, whole and healthy.

So you can bring your A game to that relationship. And with that done, the two of you doing that, you can now build and invest in a marriage that will delight your hearts. Yeah, two healthy people can have a healthy marriage. That is the truth.

Yeah. Now I like the phrase in the subtitle, create a marriage you both love. Why is it important that you both love what you're creating? You know, I really am captivated by the idea that God delights in seeing his children thrive. And I'm convinced that our goal is not at any point just to keep people together for the cause where they might endure misery or even mediocrity. God wants us to be a testament to what's possible with him and therefore to have a relationship that when what we experience and what others see is something they go, you know, I want that.

And we don't have a relationship that both people are happy with. So our goal when we do work, even with couples who are struggling, is to help them figure out how to make that happen. And they don't have to like the marriage for the same reason, as long as they both like it. With my marriage, I'm telling you, Jenny and I right now both love our marriage, but if you get a detailed list of what I love and what she loves, there will be differences there.

And as long as we both have plenty of what we both love, we've got a marriage that we can enjoy and that will give a great testament to what's possible with our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, Bob, let's talk about some of the struggles people have in marriage. How much conflict comes because of the lack of communication or poor communication? You know, I would say when I ask people what it is that is causing them to seek help, more often than anything else, they will cite communication problems. Because, I mean, they are aware that they are not connecting and that they are really misunderstanding, not understanding each other.

And it's extremely confusing. And so often they have no idea what to do about it. They know there's a problem and they just need help. So we do spend a significant amount of time helping people understand how to communicate effectively. And one of the things that we tell them is that there are two types of communication that people who are successful in their marriage typically are able to do. One is what we call work talk, which is really just, you know, how do you deal with differences? How do you deal with conflict?

How do you get stuff done? Come up with strategies to get things accomplished. But the other is what we call heart talk. And that's when we talk heart to heart. We talk about our feelings, our longings, our desires, our hopes, our struggles, those types of things. And couples who are the most successful are able to see the difference, do both of those and make sure that they're doing the same one at the same time. You want two people trying to do heart talk at the same time or two people trying to do work talk.

Otherwise, they're going to be talking at each other. Someone has said, in fact, many people have said communication is to a marriage what oxygen is to the body. That's essential, right?

Absolutely critical. What about a spouse who has broken the trust of the other spouse, which I know you face often in your counseling. How does the spouse who was hurt over this come to forgive such a serious mistake as unfaithfulness in a marriage? Well, I think you I'm sure realize that in our work, I would say there's probably no issue that we confront more frequently than infidelity. Sadly, it is so prevalent and it does really take a toll on couples when that occurs. And forgiving can be very difficult. The feeling, the deep feeling of betrayal can be so hard to let go of. Now, we find that obviously one of the things we want to do is help this couple that is trying to recover, get clear about what it is they're trying to accomplish so that they can be on the same team, striving toward the same objective. But to the spouse that has been betrayed, obviously, it is something that takes frequently divine intervention to help. The reality that we are able to have confidence in our eternity is completely dependent on the fact that our Lord and Savior has come and has been willing to forgive us of our shortcomings, of our failings. So sometimes it takes saying, God, I need your help. There is nothing in me that can do this without your help because I don't want to forgive them. I want to be done with them. But you're calling me to reconciliation, so please, Lord, I need your help to find a way to forgive. And those are the things that typically are the foundational setups to be able to pull that one off.

Yeah. Bob, what's involved in forgiving? What does it mean to forgive? I think there's a way in which it means, first of all, I think realistically you need to acknowledge that you've been genuinely hurt and that there is a betrayal.

And that feeling bad about it is not weird or wrong, something you just need to get over. It's something that is reasonable given the circumstances. But at that point, you have the ability to let it go with God's help, to give it to God for that matter, to let him carry it and let him be the one who would be seeking justice. It's not my job when I forgive to be the one that seeks justice. I can give it to God and say, okay, there has been an offense and you have the right as the Lord to seek justice. And I'm going to give it to you and trust you to do whatever you will with it. Now, our Lord would be very justified in cutting that person off and saying, I'm done with you.

But that isn't the way he operates. So I give it to him, I let him take care of it, and I know that he is very forgiving of anyone who was willing to seek forgiveness. So that helps me get to that state of being able to let it go, realizing that I'm going to hand it to the Lord and I don't have to be the one to exact justice here. If the person chooses to forgive, does that mean they trust them again automatically or does this trust have to take time to be rebuilt? I tell people regularly that it takes approximately 10 times longer to reestablish trust than it does to destroy it. You can destroy it in an instant. And honestly, if I'm going to be giving my heart that the Lord said above all else I should be guarding, and what he says in Proverbs, that I need to be very careful about the extent to which I re-extend trust to that individual.

I want to see evidence that they are going to be treating me with the respect that a child of God deserves to be treated, that my heart will be handled with care when I extend it out there. So absolutely not. Once you forgive, does trust need to be just given back over? I think that's foolish. What about the guilty party? What do you advise them to do in order to rebuild trust?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think they need to be very humbly recognizing that forgiveness and rebuilding trust is not something that I have any right to expect. That it is something that would be given graciously toward me if I have betrayed someone to that degree. And that I would see it as my responsibility to not try to get them to trust me, but rather to do everything in my power to be trustworthy. I never ask anybody.

I never ask my clients to trust me. My goal is to be trustworthy, worthy of their trust. And that is an ongoing task because I am capable of betraying someone's trust in an instant if I take my eye off the mark. So absolutely, humbly do everything in your power from now on to be a person worthy of that individual's trust. Let's say the guilty party has apologized. The other person has made the choice to forgive. Forgiveness doesn't destroy the memory and often doesn't destroy the feelings.

How do you handle that when the memory comes back and the feelings come back? You know, the reality is, it's such a good question, the reality is that what we're really dealing with at that point is a broken heart. And you know, broken hearts, it's interesting, Jesus is the healer of the broken bones. But you'll notice in scripture, there's very few things ever that reference that he is the healer of the broken bones.

But there is a tremendous amount where he is referred to as the healer of the broken hearted. And broken hearts heal very much like broken bones. They heal over time. They heal with attention and care. And it is it's not reasonable to think you can just snap your fingers and get over it. That you need to be sensitively, careingly giving yourself space for your heart to heal.

And then over time, just like with a broken bone or any other physical injury, that pain can lessen and to get to a point, hopefully where it completely subsides. But it does take time and sensitive, careful attention. Bob, the topic of self-care has been talked about a lot in our culture and in the church as well. And some people kind of push back about self-care.

You shouldn't be thinking about yourself. But you really think it's important. And I wonder if you can give us some strategies for self-care and why we need it.

Well, I think it is essential. Matter of fact, I would say one of the hallmarks of our method and why focused marital therapy is as powerful and effective as it is, because we're very person-centered. And we realized that when Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, he said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, with your whole being. And he said the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself. It's so interesting how many people in our faith rewrite that last verse to say to love your neighbor instead of yourself. And Jesus said, no, I am expecting you, my child, to care well for yourself and then to care for others in a like way. So this isn't like our culture says, which is to make it all about me.

If it feels good, do it. No, I am looking to my Lord and my Savior to guide me as to what that really means. But that would include being truly connected to who he created me to be and do what he's brought me here to do, which is not just about me.

It's about caring for me so I can care well for others and in my marriage so that I can bring my A-game, my best self to my wife and be able to have our relationship based on that. It also means that I'm going to be really focusing on Jenny being the best Jenny she can be. And I don't want to ever have to choose between me and Jenny. I'm convinced you choose, you lose.

I want to choose me and Jenny. Both of us need to be fully who we were created to be and both be supported in being the best selves we can for ourselves, for our marriage and for the kingdom. So how do I do that then? What's a good first step, especially if I'm one of those people that thinks, you know, I need to think of other people and not think of myself? Well, I think one of the things that we need to do is to recognize that there are two types of self-care. One we call proactive, which is just, you know, basic maintenance.

I got to make sure I get a good food, get enough rest, get enough exercise just to keep this temple well attended to. But then there's also reactive care. What do I do when I get triggered?

Because, you know, you guys may be surprised to hear that periodically my wife will do something that'll just hit one of my buttons and set me off. And I got to be careful that I don't lose my countenance at that point that I am able to figure out, okay, what do I, I got to pause and pull back and go, okay, before I let the enemy take over here and cause me to be in a way that is very contrary to who God created me to be, what would caring for myself look like under those circumstances? So we've got both of those things that need to be regularly attended to. How do I take care of myself regularly and what do I do when I get triggered? What about caring for yourself in terms of emotional needs and that sort of thing?

What would be practical in taking care of yourself? You know, one of the surprising things about that is that so many people of faith have come to the conclusion that feelings are silly. So we're talking about or, or, or can lead us astray and so forth and you need to ignore your feelings. But the truth of the matter is there isn't a single emotion that was not created by God. Feelings are fundamentally created by God on purpose with purpose and feelings are meant to be part of a wonderful system that God created for us to be able to care for ourselves.

Feelings of the data, feelings of the data center. And when we feel it's telling us what's going on within us, now our brain is the next part, our head. So our heart is the data center, our head is the interpreter of the data, and then strategizes, comes up with plans to go ahead and be able to figure out what caring for myself would look like and what's showing up like God created me to show up would be.

And then we send marching orders to my hands, which carry out that plan. So heart, head, hands, three essential systems. So caring for myself emotionally has to be, first of all, honoring those emotions as important data that God gave me to understand what was going on so I could figure out how to show up in a way that honors all involved. You know, Bob, the Scriptures talk about the two, husband and wife, become one.

One flesh is the term in the Genesis account there. And I think all of us recognize that deep longing to be deeply connected to our spouse. What are some tips to connect more deeply with your spouse? Well, part of it gets back down to what we know is the biblical understanding of intimacy, which is the Hebrew term yada, which means to know.

And it's really about getting to know each other in deeper and deeper ways over time. You know, I had a counseling session once that was kind of sad. I had a guy that came in who had had an affair, which wasn't unusual, but he had actually taken the time to figure out why he had that affair, which is highly unusual. And he had realized that the reason he had the affair was unknowingly he had allowed the romance and passion in this relationship to just drift apart. And some sweet gal came up and whispered sweet nothings into his ear, and he violated everything he believed to be true. And once he woke up and realized that he had become a man he didn't want to be, he brought his wife into session and he said, help me restore the romance. And I looked at both of them and I told him, what we've learned is that romance is really about maintaining fascination and curiosity in that journey of getting to know each other. And he looked at me and he leaned back and he wagged his finger at me and he said, Bob, I don't buy it.

And I said, why? He said, my wife is truly one of the most delightful, loving women that has ever lived on this planet, but she's just not that complicated. And there is nothing about her that I don't already know. And then he challenged both me and her to come up with one single thing that he didn't know about her. And brother, I knew he was wrong because, guys, one lifetime isn't close to enough time to get to know any human being, yourself included. And he was missing out the opportunity of getting to know the amazing intricacies of this woman that was so beautiful and so delightful.

Yeah. If you were trying to help a couple establish more communication, sharing about themselves, their history and their feelings and all that sort of thing, what do you suggest? If they're just not close at all, where do you start to begin to build that kind of communication? I think it's important to recognize that you need to have some deeper conversations. It's funny at some of our events we'll tell couples, guys, if you just do 10 minutes of deeper conversation where you're talking about feelings, you're talking about hopes, you're talking about dreams, you're talking about struggles and difficulties, you're talking about where God is meeting you right now in your life and where he's wanting to grow you, just 10 minutes a day can go to great lengths to go ahead and build that relationship and make it stronger.

So if you really want to do yourselves a favor, go do something radical like maybe have a weekly date night where you go out and you plan to have some enjoyable time together and make it part of that time committed to getting to know each other in deeper ways and getting clear about what's going on emotionally in those moments for you. So those are some big helps. Yeah.

Yeah. Thanks for joining us today for the Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast. Gary's the author of The New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . You can find out more about your love language or our featured resource by going to buildingrelationships.us. You'll see a link there to the book by our guest, Dr. Bob Paul. It's titled Empowered to Love, discovering your God-given power to create a marriage you both love.

Just go to buildingrelationships.us. You know, Bob, I've often said that couples are either growing, that is, the marriage is growing or it's regressing. We don't stand still. So how do you know when you're drifting apart, you know, when things are getting worse instead of better? And how do couples reconnect when they realize that they're drifting apart?

You know, it's hard in this day and age for so many people with that very issue because I'd say one of the things that the enemy seems to be very mindful of is how effective terminal busyness can be. We can become so busy and so distracted with raising our family and dealing with our careers and dealing with church and all those things that we can absolutely lose sight of one another and feel like we're still doing life together because we're dealing with all the busyness. But there's a personal side of the relationship that, if not attended, will cause people to drift apart. And now we've got this sad phenomenon we call the gray divorce phenomenon in our culture. Where so many couples in their 50s and later are getting divorced and a lot of times it's when the kids leave and they look at each other and they've realized that they have so neglected their relationship that they don't even recognize each other anymore.

They feel like they have nothing in common. So the first most important thing is to pay attention to whether or not you're drifting personally and make sure that you are putting time, investing time into making that relationship between you and your spouse special, personal, and strong. Many men, I've found, are doing wonderful with their business and their vocation and the marriage is just sort of there, neglected. What would you advise a man who takes time to think that that really is happening in his life? Yeah, I think that the thing that is setting up is for that point to come where you've drifted so far apart that you don't feel connected at all and that the relationship is not satisfying for either you, your spouse, or both of you.

And you know, it's interesting how many, the stats that we're seeing, how many women end up being the ones that instigate the divorce and that what we saw, the numbers I saw recently was that 26% of the men in those cases are completely blindsided by it. That they were so focused on everything else, they didn't even realize that their wife was not satisfied. They never bothered to ask, how are things going for you? How do you feel about the relationship?

They figured because they're doing fine, their wife is too. So if you don't want to be blindsided and caught off guard, pause long enough and check in with each other and say, okay, how is this going for you? Remember, the goal is for both of you to love the relationship and the direction it's headed. And unless you check in, just thinking that because it's going fine for you, it's going good for your spouse is a setup for failure.

Yeah. Let's say you have a conversation like that, the couple. Honey, how do you feel like we're doing in our marriage? And you both are honest and open and then you realize that there is a huge chasm between the two of you. How do you put a marriage back together when you're so far apart? Well, if they're both able to get clear about what they would want to see occur, what they want the end to be, you know, to be able to put into words the relationship they would long for, what's missing, then they can maybe develop a strategy to get there. But many people at that point haven't a clue how to rescue a relationship that's struggling to that degree. And at that point, for goodness sakes, reach out and get help, whether it be go to your pastor, you can come to Hope Restored, you can go to a good Christian counselor. Reach out and get some help because sometimes you're just too close to the situation and you need some outside perspective to help you see possibilities and opportunities that maybe you've overlooked or maybe didn't even realize were there.

Yeah. Yeah, Bob, I don't know about you, but I'm encouraged that in today's world, couples are more open and willing to reach out to a counselor or to find out about an intensive weekend or time, like you mentioned earlier. Are you finding that to be true, more open than they were a few years ago? Yeah, I think there's been a cultural shift and I don't think that getting counseling is seen as the same kind of stigma that it used to have. I think many people used to think that if you needed to get some help, that there was something fundamentally wrong with you. And I think today it is more seen, more commonly accepted as just a good, wise idea to get help beyond you. That we're talking about intimate relationships that can be confusing and can be challenging. And many of us don't have good information to work with and to be able to seek help, whether it be through enrichment or through counseling, is seen more commonly now as something that is actually a sign of something worthy of praise that you have the wisdom and the commitment to go beyond yourself and bring others in to help you find your way to the promised land. You know, if we had a physical pain in our body, we wouldn't wait too long until we go see a medical doctor. And so for the one that might be hesitant, why would you wait a year or two years to reach out for help in the marriage?

Which is more important sometimes than the physical pain you might be feeling. So yeah, I would certainly like to encourage couples to do that. Now, let's say that a couple is really basically living just as roommates. They're living in the same house, they're cordial to each other, they're not fighting necessarily, but they're just roommates. How can that couple become more soulmates in the marriage, sharing their real genuine lives with each other? How can you do that?

What is part of that process? I think they first have to acknowledge, both of them, that they want more. And it's interesting how commonly I see even, you know, guys, I hate to be stereotypical, but so often guys are afraid to go to those deeper places, but they really do long for it. I mean, most guys want plenty. If I ask a group, would you like to see an increase in romance and passion in your relationship?

Everybody raises their hand. Everybody wants that. I think that frequently people don't understand that it takes intentional time and attention, investment, to get to that point. And that if you really want to be connected deeply, emotionally, romantically, and passionately, there has to be room in the relationship for you to be talking about, managing, facing, dealing with your feelings. Because intimacy and intimate connection at its core is always going to be an open heart to open heart connection. The other thing related to that is you've got to be making sure that you've got a relationship that is safe enough for people to be able to open to that degree. And not just safe physically, but safe mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, where you really feel like you can be not only naked and unashamed, but naked and unafraid. Really knowing and being known by one another.

Yeah. Well, you know, in that desire to have more romance in the marriage, what are some of the things that take place in a marriage that leads you to have a sense of being more connected to each other romantically? You know, I think the key for me has been recognizing what I said earlier when I talked to that guy in the counseling session, that I want to maintain a fascination and a curiosity about getting to know my wife. I mean, so many people have so many mistaken ideas about what real romance is. I mean, you know, the economy likes us to believe it's all about buying flowers and cards and gifts and candy. Or it might maybe we have the mistaken idea thinking that it's all about the right ambiance. You know, you have a romantic dinner with tablecloth and candlelight and Vinny playing the violin by your table side or sitting by a roaring fire or a walk on the beach.

And the truth of the matter is none of those things create romance because you take any two people who have zero interest in each other and you stick them in the most ideal setting with all the accoutrements and you'll see no romance occurring. But guys, you take a couple and you stick them in the middle of a Walmart parking lot on a cold drizzly dreary evening, but they are fascinated with each other and you're going to see sparks flying for miles because that's the key. So for me, I'm afraid of boredom. I feel like a living dead person if I'm bored and I don't want to be bored in my marriage. So I am consciously and intentionally wanting to get to know my wife in deeper and deeper ways over time. And I'm telling you, I've been with her for 45 years and I'm still learning new things about Jenny Paul all the time. And just to keep it interesting, she keeps changing on me.

But that's good because there's always something new to learn and that keeps the romance flames burning bright. How do you bring your whole self into a marriage? And I know, you know, particularly with guys, we got a vocation and sometimes the wife has a vocation as well outside the home. But how do you bring your whole self into the marriage?

Well, that's a great question. And honestly, our focus in everything we do is to make safety the key. I borrowed the slogan from Ford, safety in my marriage is job one because I need to be clear that to bring my whole self, I have to be willing to be known. And unfortunately, that will include some of the less desirable parts of me, some of the wrinkles, some of the flaws, you know, because I know my goal is to be completely conformed to the image of Christ. And guys, at this age especially, I'm painfully aware I haven't got enough days left to pull that off. So for Jenny to be able to know me, I have to be able to recognize that she's going to see the parts of me that are in process, to the ugly parts, the less than beautiful parts.

And the same thing with her. But it needs to be an environment where it's OK to be a person who's learning and growing. And I don't want to be I don't want to be afraid of regretting letting her see me in process. So making it safety and making it safe and making that a priority is really, really key. So you can just relax and let your hair down and just enjoy the getting to know each other process and the growing process as we grow together.

Yeah. Now, there is a section in the back of the book that I think couples will find really helpful. It's the reactive cycle exercise. Can you explain how that can help couples? You know, 20 plus years ago, we stumbled on to the fact and other people have found this, but we had never seen it before that underlying all difficulty, all conflict in marriage.

There is a very predictable pattern that is virtually the same for everybody. There's nobody that this doesn't work for. And we call it the reactive cycle. And we didn't realize when we stumbled onto this that it applied to everybody. But we've since come to find that it does. And the reactive cycle helps people to see how, when we have one of our triggers, our buttons pushed and something sets us off, that we will almost without fail react in some way to try and mitigate the feelings that we just had that we didn't like. What's bizarre is if I'm anywhere close to Jenny, it will almost without fail push one of her buttons and she will react, which of course will push one of my buttons and I will react and we are off to the races. And what we found is that we have a test that people can take that will highlight that and help them to see it.

It doesn't fix anything, but it's amazing. When you turn the light on and you actually see what's going on under the surface when conflict is occurring, it opens up a world of possibilities of alternatives that you can do other than just spin like that and be miserable. I think that's going to help a lot of couples. I really would encourage couples to not only get the book, but to do that exercise. Now, the title of the book, as we come toward the end of our time together, Bob, is Empowered to Love. And the subtitle is Discovering Your God-given Power to Create a Marriage You Both Love.

Say a few words about that God-given power and how do we tap into that? You know, I know that there was a way in which for a long time, I mistakenly looked at Jennie as the cause of all my disappointment and heartache in my relationship. And she wasn't cooperating. I was trying to get her, you know, I called myself often the self-appointed Holy Spirit Helper in the Perfecting Jennie Project. And neither Jennie nor God had invited me in.

So I was whining and complaining to God. And he said, Bob, right now, who are you seeing as causing the problem? I said, well, duh, Jennie.

And who do you see as holding the keys to the solution? I said, well, Jennie, if she would just this instead of that, it would all be better. And then he said, Bob, who has all the power in this relationship? And I said, well, Jennie. And he said, Bob, and how did she get it? And it stopped me in my tracks. I said, I guess I gave it to her.

He said, Bob, I didn't give you the power to give it to her. I gave you the power to use it responsibly. And I went, wow.

And guys, that was a game changer for me. I realized that I needed to get out of that at a Satan's game of blaming Jennie and others for what I was dealing with and take it back. It is the most empowering thing I can do to accept full responsibility for who I am and how I show up. With God's help, I can be successful in both of those areas. Gary, that reminds me of the story that you've told about you and Carolyn and how it was all, if Carolyn would just be this and God spoke to you at that point, right?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and reminded me of Jesus on his knees washing the feet of his disciples. And God said, you don't have the attitude of Christ because, you know, Jesus said about himself, I didn't come to be served.

I came to serve and then later give his life a ransom for us. So, yeah, I think that's powerful, Bob. It's really what turned my marriage around when I said, God forgive me, you know, and give me the attitude of Christ. And I started reaching out and asking her how I could help her and how I could make her life easier and all those kind of things. And she began to respond in a positive way.

So, is that what you found? Maybe your turning point in the marriage? Oh, it's so huge for me. I mean, I just, I've got, to that point, there was a point when I was in that complaining stage where I was wanting, you know, to talk about all the stuff on, all the mess on Jennie's plate. And God said to me, Bob, I'll make a deal with you.

I will be okay with you dealing with the mess on Jennie's plate the day yours is perfectly clean. And it was quite evident what he was saying to me. So, in other words, not this side of heaven.

He said, yes, son, not this side of heaven. You stay focused on you and being the man that I created you to be. And I'll take care of my daughter. She and I can handle this just fine without your involvement. But you got your plate full. Go for that.

And that was a big game changer. You know what I want to hear from Bob, Gary, is the HopeRestored.com. That's the thing that people are struggling with.

They want some hope and they can't have it. And Gary, you've always said, you know, hang on to my hope that I have for you. So, Bob, I want you to tell us a story because I think anybody, a man or woman who hears a story about some kind of reconciliation that happens, that can give them a little bit of hope. So, is there one person that comes to mind, one couple that comes to mind that was going through a really deep water and you saw a turnaround?

Sure. I think about one of the most dramatic stories I can think of, of a big turnaround. One of the questions that we as couples, before they come to Hope Restored, is if God was to work a miracle in your marriage, would you accept it? And as far as we're concerned, that miracle could be the magnitude of the parting of the Red Sea. You know, we don't do miracles, but God does and we want to help people experience that.

Well, people aren't always honest about that answer when they say yes, because if they say yes, we say bring it. So, we had a couple show up and the guy really had lied to us. He wasn't the least bit open, he was just wanting to quiet all of the family members that didn't want him to give up, but he was done. And it was gut-wrenching to watch what happened over the next several days, because he wasn't willing to engage at all and he just kind of sat there with his arms folded and we worked with his wife and we were in a group and everybody was loving on her and doing the best we could to comfort her and to give her encouragement and so forth. But they left and it was really, really sad.

This ended on Thursday. They called back Monday morning because they wanted to share the miracle that had occurred. They had an eight-hour drive home and he was driving and she was just sobbing next to him. And all of a sudden, they recounted that he grabbed her hand and put it on his chest and said, Do you feel that? And she pulled it away like, Come on, you've crushed me.

Isn't that enough? You still want to just keep toying with me? He said, No, no. And he grabbed it again.

Feel that. And she said, What? He said, My heart's beating. And he said, God has touched me and I'm in.

And they just had the most amazing weekend. Well, what was really cool was a year later to the day, they showed up unexpectedly at our door and they said, We're just here back celebrating what God has done for us over the last year and how much things have been transformed. And we have seen miracles take place. And guys, in our work, we see that kind of thing happen all the time just because it looks like there is no hope. God never gives up on us. And if we're the slightest bit willing to open our hearts to Him, He will rush in and dramatic things can change and hope can be restored. Bob, that's a powerful story. And I know there's many, many of those stories because God does work in people's heart. And if they open up a little bit, He will begin to bring things to their mind that will help them.

I'm glad you were with us today, Bob. And I think this book is going to help a lot of people. I would just encourage our listeners to get a copy and work through it. I think you're going to find it helpful. And for those that are really, really struggling, I would just again encourage them to go to HopeRestore.com and find out where these intensives are going on because they have been used of God to help a lot of couples. So thank you again for what you've done in writing the book and thanks for being with us today.

It is always a pleasure. Just go to BuildingRelationships.us. You'll see more about empowered to love, discovering your God-given power to create a marriage you both love, written by Dr. Bob Paul. Again, go to BuildingRelationships.us. And Gary mentioned the website, HopeRestore.com.

Again, HopeRestore.com. And next week, your questions about marriage, dating, parenting, and more. Our March edition of Dear Gary is coming up 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 association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.