Hey, before we get started today, let's talk small groups. Yes, because everyone at this time of year starts thinking, what small group material should I use? Yeah, we've led hundreds of groups and you got to have great material and Family Life has you covered. We have great, great material.
The art of marriage, vertical marriage, you name it, we got it. And it's on sale the month of August. You go to familylife.com slash shop and it's 25% off. And let me just say thank you to all the small group leaders. You are making a difference. Keep going.
Again, that's familylife.com slash shop and get 25% off right now. There's a saying that, what is it, that men marry women, hoping that they don't change, right? Even though our bodies are going to change, our hormones are going to change. And women marry men, hoping that they will change or that we can change them.
Because we're so wonderful, we're just going to change. Yeah. How's that working?
Right, exactly. Oh, believe me, I tried. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. All right, so we got the pars back in here.
Alan and Jennifer are back. Don't you love them? Yeah, I mean, I never, I mean, I've watched your YouTube. Obviously, we've never met till you came to Orlando to hang out with us. You guys are pretty big YouTubers, like millions of followers.
Thank you. Did you ever see that happening? No, definitely not.
No, it wasn't something that we went into thinking. You know, I was teaching high school math at the time I started the YouTube channel. But you have an engineering degree and a theological degree. And a communications partner right here. Yes.
So it makes sense that it works. But it's cool that you started your YouTube channel the year that you got married. Yes. Yeah, the first video was August 17, 2015. We got married November 15, 2015. So they just happened the same exact time. Yeah, that you guys have been married. Eight years.
Years. You have a five. Two kids. Five and seven.
And I didn't ask you yesterday, any more kids on You Thinking? We are still exploring the possibility. But yeah.
We're factoring a lot of things like energy to keep up with the two we have now. And you're like, what is it? You go from man defense to zone? You go to zone? Zone.
You go to zone? She knew that. I know. So you get those two. I'm going to cover this one over here.
It's true. Especially three boys. Oh, my goodness. It was awesome. Under five.
It was crazy. Okay, let's talk. I mean, I know you do a lot of different things on your YouTube. A lot in theology and helping people. But let's talk relationships.
Marriage and relationship. Like what are some of the myths? Because there's a lot.
There are a lot. Do you wish that you would have had somebody talk to you even more about what some of these myths are? I wish I had a YouTube video available that I could have gone to before marriage to not necessarily determine whether I would have gotten married, but just to set my expectations to understand. And so one of the myths that we've talked about in the past is this myth that marriage will make me happy. That is a huge myth that I think many people, singles, myself included, because whenever I was single, if I'm just being completely honest, I wasn't happy for quite a bit of the time as singles.
I had times when I was. But in my mind, I thought, well, what will make me truly happy is if I can get married. And I think that what I would want our listeners to understand is that while there is quite a bit of joy and happiness that comes with marriage, people always revert back to who they really are.
It's just a matter of time. And I'm sure you all know all the different science and different, what is it, hormones and different things that stimulate us. When we're in love, there's all these, I don't know exactly all the ones they are, but there's different things that come from our brain, different hormones that are released and different things like that that make us feel so happy and so euphoric and so excited. And I believe that God gives us that and he wants us to have that because that's what drives us to the altar. But those feelings of excitement and feelings of like extreme euphoria, it's not designed to stay there. Kind of like what you mentioned in one of our other messages about when you get saved first, you're on fire because it's a new relationship and you want to tell everybody about Jesus.
Well, sometimes 30 years later, it's like, okay, where's off? So understanding that we always revert back to who we are. So if you are a depressed single or if you're someone who's not really happy, if you get married thinking that marriage is going to bring your happiness, unfortunately it's going to be a sad reality because you're going to revert back to who you really are, which is why it's important to make sure that we do have some sense of emotional health and happiness when we're single because that's who we're going to be when we're married. Jennifer, did you find that too?
Oh yes. And I think the reason why that's important too is if you marry for happiness, which as Alan said is important, when you're not happy, I think it's easy to end a marriage too for that same reason. Because you say, I'm not happy. You're not making me happy. We're not happy anymore. So you think what we have said is you think you've married the wrong person because the right person will continually make me happy.
The only person that will make you happy continually is Jesus. And even then your feelings are going to come and go. Exactly.
Yeah. We, as I preached at my church for years, I had people come up and say, because I was so honest about this fact that you struggle and we struggle and we do marriage messages together. Singles actually would come up and say, I don't know if I want to get married after hearing you guys. Cause you talk about how hard it is, isn't it good?
I'm like, well, yeah, it's awesome. But we try to be honest and say it's hard. It's not the center and the source of your happiness.
So how did you navigate that when you realize that? Yeah. And I think that's actually another myth is that you don't have to work in marriage.
Yes. We work to accomplish so many things in life. We work hard to get that job. We work hard to keep the job. We work hard in school. Hard in school. We work hard. If you're training for a marathon, you work hard to build a business.
You're building a business. We work hard at everything else or things we want to. There is a myth that marriage doesn't take that much work or shouldn't, or it should just be easy because love just flows. It's just easy. And it's because when we were dating, it was easy for the most part. I mean, when I counseled dating couples and they're having a ton of conflict and a ton of arguing, I always say, you may want to reevaluate whether this is the right, because when we were dating, it was so easy. We were in love.
We talked for six, seven hours. A conflict was there, but it was minimal. And that's kind of how it's supposed to be. If you're having extreme conflict when you're dating, that's supposed to be the easiest time ever.
Yeah, that's a red flag. Exactly. So we think, oh, well, marriage should probably be just like it was when we were dating. But what we didn't realize is that all these stressors that come into your relationship that erode from your happiness, and those could be picking up extra hours at work, or those could be a sickness, or as much as we love our kids, and I'm not going to call our kids as stressors, but they provide more responsibility. So these different things happen that weren't present when you were dating.
And so, therefore, these things can erode away from this feeling of just being euphoric all the time. Well, I remember, too, we talk about this in Vertigo Marriage, our book, but at year 10, I felt so unhappy. And I really did think I need to get my happiness back, but I can only get it back if Dave does ABC, because he's the problem. He's the reason I'm not happy, because he's not living out these things I want him to live.
I think that can happen to any of us at any time in a marriage. I felt like at one point, God, he impressed me. I never created Dave or made Dave to meet all of your needs or to make you happy. It's not his job. That's my job. Absolutely.
And man, when I get my eyes off of Jesus, I put them on Dave and his weaknesses, and then I'm not happy. And I depend on somebody else to bring me my happiness. I think that is so common. Yeah, I think it is. I mean, is that what you would say to the couple that's listening right now? And she or he is like, I'm not happy.
I'm living where they said, what do I do? Is that what you would say? I love that you said that when your eyes were removed from God, or maybe there was just a disconnection, you know, for that season, it makes it easier to put it on something else or someone else. An idol.
An idol. Yeah. Yeah, and I wish someone had told me that.
That's why it's a myth. You know, I think we talk about happiness and marriage is happy. Like, that's another thing, too. It's beautiful. It was designed to be. Yes. But I did not realize how even that in itself could become an idol.
It's searching for that happiness, and then that becomes an idol in the idea of being married, someone providing the happiness for you. It just, yeah, it's a little backwards. It is. I feel like, too, that's why we need to be in the Word. It's just a reminder. It's that daily surrendering of my life. Jesus, I give you my life. You're my king.
I'm going to follow you. Because if I don't do that, this is just me. I can easily put all my expectations on Dave instead of God. Yeah. And I always tell people that, you know, I think we're all responsible for our own happiness. Like, if I'm just being fully transparent, there's been seasons in our marriage where, you know, my wife was kind of struggling with, you know, just postpartum depression, different things.
Yeah. If you want to, you know, I don't know how much anxiety and I'm feeling like I'm just feeling good. I'm happy and stuff.
And I'm just, you know, I'm not able to relate to that. And I think that one of the things that can be a great source of happiness is whenever you feel like you're really walking in God's purpose for your life. Oh, my goodness. Then when seasons, whenever maybe we were having, as we call intense fellowships or maybe having some, I don't know, some disagreements or different tension, if you will, I didn't put all of my happiness in my marriage.
Right? So it's like, if my marriage is kind of having tension, then I'm not happy. No, I mean, that's an aspect of my life. That's a compartment of my life.
It's the most important part. But I can still experience extreme happiness because I have this purpose that I'm living out and I have things I love to do. I love to play golf. I love to ski.
I love to do these things. So I have this ability to still find joy in life, even when one part of my life might be tense. But when we feel like our marriage is everything in who we are, I think that that's when it's like, okay, if I'm not happy in my marriage, I'm not happy as a person.
It's putting too much on a person. Yes. You're saying, yeah.
Or on the institution of marriage. Yeah. Yeah, in some ways you said earlier, if you're not happy as a single, that was good. It's probably going to creep into your marriage because I think what we do is we blame our spouse for our unhappiness.
Right. Everything else in my life is fine. But you, that's wrong. He or he may be contributing to that, obviously, because you're married, but you're elevating that person bigger than they actually are the factor in your unhappiness. I think we as women, there's this kind of high that we get from helping a man, changing a man, like, oh, I'm going to help him out of that and I'm going to bring him and help him and I'm going to make him better.
Girlfriend, sister, let me tell you, that is a wrong place to go. One, you are not going to change him. Maybe this is another myth. I'm going to change you.
That's another good myth. I'm going to make him better. No, you're not. We can influence. We have great power and influence over our spouse, but we are not going to change them. So if you're dating somebody that you're thinking, I'm going to change them.
No, we should have added that in our video. That's a word right there. That is not your job. That is God's job. Amen. I love that because there's a saying that, what is it? That men marry women, hoping that they don't change, right?
Even though our bodies are going to change, our hormones are going to change, and women marry men hoping that they will, they will change or that we can change them because we're so worried or full. Yeah, how's that working? Right. Exactly.
Believe me, I tried, but I'm sure you tried hard. I'm writing a book about it right now, but I will say that Jesus has changed both of us and that's what has to happen. Yeah. And to allow God to do that in his timing.
But you can pray, man, be on your face praying. All right, do you have another myth? Yeah. So another myth is that sex in marriage should be normal, natural, easy, never have to work on it, never have to talk about it. See, I'm clapping. Yeah.
Thank you for talking about this. I'm telling you, if you're attracted whenever your date, because we waited until we were married. I know everybody didn't do that, but we waited till we were married. Now we had previous experiences, unfortunately before with others, before we got married, but with each other, we waited. And you know, the expectation is, okay, I'm attracted to you.
You're attracted to me. We should be like rabbits put up in the same room, but we should be able to figure this all out and we should never be able to have any issue at all. Well, I mean, that might be some people's testimony and there may be some people's thing, but it's just like anything else that it requires intentionality. Absolutely.
In many levels, frequency and different seasons can change things. I mean, when you get married and you don't have any kids and you have no responsibility, we always joke that when our first year of marriage, we would go out to the movies on a Tuesday night. On a Tuesday night.
Like, who does that now? We do it now as empty nesters. We're going to do it again someday. Oh my goodness.
I'm not ready for that yet, but when it happens, I'll be ready for it. But we used to just be Footloose and Fancy free. What is it called? The dink life? Yeah.
Dual income, no kids. D-I-N-K. I haven't heard of that. Oh yes. We were rolling, you know? But then, you know, when you have a toddler and breastfeeding and slobbers coming all over you and it's like, it's not the most romantic situation, you know?
So things can change. You have to work a little harder in those seasons. So yeah, we need to talk about this. I felt like a Dairy Queen like the first couple years. Like, I just, I felt like, yeah, like a milk machine, you know? And it didn't matter how much I bathed, you know, I just always smelled like milk. Can I share this story with you?
Because I am relating this. We had a four and a two year old. I was pregnant with the third and Dave is in his office working that day. You and I don't tell this story. He has his feet up on his desk and he has his Bible in his lap. I'm actually writing a sermon. I'm four and a half months pregnant. I feel terrible.
I have a laundry basket with a child sitting in it. And the other one with me and I walk by Dave's office. He goes, Anne, Anne, come in here just for a second. You know, I'm like, what?
I can't, I cannot believe how clueless I was. It's super sweet what you said though. He goes, do you just think about our sex life every day, every minute? And I'm like, look at me. This is my life now, right? This is me.
No, no. And so I remember when you said that I was so bummed. I'm like, oh, right. I mean, I couldn't even see you with her reality.
It was right there in front of me. But that's normal. Yes. It's so normal. Yeah. And it's real. And I don't think a lot of people talk about that.
No, they don't. You want to hear the end of that story? So she ends up with that third pregnancy bed rest for like several months. Four and a half months. I've got two little boys. What's our oldest is three? No, he's four.
Yeah. And I'm Mr. Mom and it's, I'm working, I'm doing grocery, everything. And I lay down one night in bed, just exhausted. Like every mom does every night. But I'm just, I lay down, I'm just like, I am exhausted. And she literally turns to me into his ear. And I'm like, are you just thinking about our sex life all day long?
She goes, gotcha. Welcome to my world, right? That was good. But you're right. That's, I mean, the reality, that's a myth.
It's just going to be easy. And again, we're not saying some couples. There are days and weeks and months and it's wonderful. And again, but it's hard work. There's just transitions in life with babies, with menopause.
There's so many different things with stress, with physical things that are going on. So this is an area that we have to continually work on. I agree.
Yeah. And it doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. I mean, I love how we brought this kind of full circle. Like we started out going to movies in the middle of the week and you just confirm it's going to come back. You're going to go back to that season. So what you're feeling in that season, the fatigue, sometimes you have the desire, but you don't have the energy, you know, you have the energy, but you don't have the desire because of hormonal change, whatever it is.
It is a season and we shouldn't make permanent, not only necessary decisions, but permanent like ideas about that season. Like something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with him. Something's wrong with our sex life.
Because we dealt with that. It's like, well, you know, what's wrong with me? Because when, you know, there's been seasons when you, maybe your desire wasn't maybe as much as where you would like it to be, which I think is very common with women is that, you know, and you were wondering, you know, God, there's something wrong with me. And then I'm wondering, okay, are you not attracted to me anymore? Like, what's, is it me? You know? And so I just want our listeners and our viewers to know like that if you're in that season, like there's nothing wrong with you all.
Now there might be some things you need to work out and talk through, but for the most part, these are normal, natural seasons that happen because like, especially when you have little kids, those seasons specifically where you have to be very intentional about having conversations about expectations. Okay. What do you need now?
Okay. And what you need in this season might be very different than what I need in this season. And you and I've talked about that. You might need more attention and more affection and more, you know, affirmation.
And I might need more physical touch. And so that's where the conversation and communication has to be. And one of the keys, I think what you just said, talk about it. Yes. A lot of couples have a hard time talking about this area of the relationship.
Yes. And because it can be awkward and could be, you know, you feel like I'm feeling things I don't want to say out loud and you may not know why she's not interested. And it's important to talk. Couples don't talk about this.
Yeah. They joke about it. They don't talk about it. So it's scary to talk about. It's a big one.
All right. Another myth. Yeah, that marriage will cure my lust problem. You know, there's a lot of people and nowadays I can't just say men because men and women equally are struggling with lust, struggling with pornography. Unfortunately, statistics do show that, you know, it's as much of a women's issue as a men's issue. But when you're single, you think that, OK, the solution to my lust problem is that I will be able to get married.
Right. And I always say this because if you are listening and you have a sex addiction, you have struggling with pornography and things of that nature, pornography, it meets this need for frequency and variety. You can watch it and view it as much as you want. So it's there for you all the time. But you can have a new experience all the time because there's always a new video that you could watch and hopefully, you know, people watching this are getting help and getting freedom in this area. But the expectation is, OK, well, maybe marriage is going to be like that. And what we don't realize is that, wait, no, marriage was never designed to meet the frequency and variety issue.
So you could get married. And now if it's a God honoring marriage and people are intentional about wanting to meet each other's needs, the frequency of sexual intimacy hopefully should be there. But the variety, like this part of your brain that's used to getting different experiences because of what you've seen online, that's not being met. It's the same person every single day for how many years? Forty-four.
Forty-four years, the same person. So we need to make sure that we're not going into marriage thinking that, OK, all I need to do to solve this problem because I'm just I'm burning with lust. If I just get married, then this problem will go away. No, you still have to exercise extreme amounts of self-control when you get married as well. I totally agree.
I've talked to so many women that are engaged. Right. And I'll ask them, have you guys talked about pornography and if this has been an issue in either of your lives? Right.
And I would say almost 100 percent of the time that person will say yes, but we know that it won't be a problem after we get married. Wow, right. And so I think that is just one of the biggest myths ever, that it will come back and either spouse can feel incredibly betrayed. Yes. Taken back like I didn't know this would be an issue. And now you've got a full-blown problem and expectations of what you thought it would be like. Right. Now you may not even want to be with this person. Right. Yeah.
So how do you encourage couples to talk about it before or after they're married? I think that you hit on something. Whenever you are single, we have to be careful that we don't get so caught up in being in love that we aren't willing to have a difficult conversation. I think we need to understand what is the depth of this? Is this a serious full-blown addiction? We need to be open and honest.
And, you know, are you watching this, you know, five times a day or whatever? Get into that really. And it might be hard because people may not want to be honest about it and things of that nature. But you need to know how much of a stronghold this is or whether it's something that they do. It's a stronghold because I've seen so many people's marriages that just have been derailed because of this issue.
And I know you all have as well. So I would say it before marriage, talk about it after marriage. Obviously, you're married, you're committed, there's nothing you can do there. So in terms of just getting out of it for that reason. But at that point, there needs to be some extreme accountability that is in place. But it can be very difficult when you're married to somebody who maybe they don't want that accountability or whatnot. And but if there's a godly couple and you're listening and one or both of you are struggling with this, there needs to be some extreme accountability, something like covenant eyes, something like another couple giving each other access to your passwords, your browsing history and things of that nature.
Because if not, it can really hinder your intimacy. We recently talked to Deborah Folletta, who is a counselor and therapist. And one of the things that she said was, this is a matter of going deeper to see why is this a struggle?
Right. And so I think that too, to find a therapist to get into the deeper levels of when you're triggered, something has happened that you're triggered. Maybe not every time.
It could just be this habit that you've been into for a long time. But to think through like with a counselor, with a godly biblical counselor, somebody that can get to the root of that. Dave is going to have some closing thoughts for you that you've got to hear in just a second.
But first, I'm Shelby Abbott. You've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Alan and Jennifer Parr on Family Life Today. You know, Alan has an incredibly successful YouTube channel, and we're going to throw a link in the show notes to his YouTube channel called The Beat. You can check that out to learn more about Alan's ministry and how he uses YouTube to reach young people for Jesus.
You know, it's almost the end of August. And as you're getting ready for small groups coming up in the fall, we wanted to let you know that all of our Family Life workbooks are now 25% off for the remainder of this month. You can go to the show notes at familylifetoday.com, look around and pick out something that'll work best for you.
Again, head over to familylifetoday.com or click on the link in the show notes. All right, here's Dave with some closing thoughts. If you've got a secret in your marriage, you've got to bring it into the light. And this, this area can be a secret for a man or a woman, but it's like, and it was in our marriage early. I had a secret and I thought, um, it's a secret because I'm going to win this thing.
It's only one time. And until I brought it from the dark into the light, because the dark, when it's in the dark, the dark always wins. When you bring it in the light with my wife and then with men, healing began. You know, James 5, you confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed. It's interesting that healing is a part of that. So I would just say if you're listening today and you're like, I've got a secret, um, and I'm losing this battle, you got to tell somebody.
And let me add, I want you to really remember this. Like Jesus is not running away from you. He's not disgusted by you. He loves you.
He's running to you. Yes. And he wants to enter in to give you the power to find freedom. Yeah. And that's true for your marriage too.
He has the best for you as we follow him and put him number one in our lives and our marriages. Yeah. Thanks guys. Thank you.
Great having you here. Thank you. Now coming up next week, do you ever feel the weight of mommy guilt? That's a thing.
It's a real thing. Well, Maggie Combs is going to be here to talk about motherhood without all the rules. That's next week. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
