Telling The Whole Truth

One of the reasons we get married is because there's a longing in each one of us to be fully known and fully loved. But being fully known can be scary too.

Here's Ryan Frederick. Whatever level of fear we feel about being exposed to our spouse, imagine if we held with true regard the holiness and majesty of God and the fact that we are exposed to Him. So, this verse is compelling believers to say, with confidence drawn near to the throne.

Why? Not because you're worthy, not because you've earned it, but it's through grace that we may receive mercy and find grace and help in our time of need. And so, that same kind of grace is available in our marriage.

We can trust that God is going to use our spouse to bring us further along in our walk towards sanctification. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. How can a husband and wife create a marriage where they can draw near to each other in confidence that they will be well-loved even when their spouse sees their shadow side? We'll talk more about that today with Ryan and Selena Frederick. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. If a wife asks her husband, so... Don't look at me, Bob. You better look over there at Anne. I think both of you can weigh in on this. If a wife says to her husband, so, how are you really?

How are you? Oh, I do ask this question a lot. She asks me that all the time. I do. That is the question on date night.

And what is the most common answer a wife is going to get from her husband? Fine. I'm fine. Yeah. Dave said, sometimes he'll say, I don't know. I think good. And what is it that you're looking for when you ask that question?

I want to know so much. Poor Dave. I want to know what he's been thinking about, what he's dreaming about, what he's struggling with.

This is what I'm longing for. And Dave, how are you? I just want to have a good steak. You know, I'm like, really? I thought we were just going to go out and enjoy the evening. Because I mean, I know what she's longing for now after 40 years, but initially I would think if we got to talk about it, there's a problem. If you don't have to talk about it, everything's good. And I want everything to be good, but I've learned learned to share, you know? And she has helped me because I was not kidding. I don't know. I think I'm good.

I really don't know. And she'd probe and ask and then I realized, oh, it was helpful to talk that through. It's also interesting with our kids. Our kids have told Dave they long for him to ask them that question.

We don't have to go that deep. Seriously? We've got some friends joining us who are now thinking about their next book, which is See Through Parenting. We've got Ryan and Celina Frederick joining us again on Family Life Today. Guys, welcome back.

Thanks for having us. Ryan and Celina are the authors of a new book called See Through Marriage. They are bloggers. They are writers.

They live in the Pacific Northwest. They've been on Family Life Today with us before. See Through Marriage is about what Anne is longing for on her dates with Dave, which is this tell me everything about you and let me see the real you and the full you. And what you guys are suggesting in the book is that all of us really do want to be known and loved. And yet most of us spend a lot of time in our marriage trying to keep parts of who we are walled off and hidden from one another. We've got to figure out how we break through those barriers so that we can have the kind of naked and unashamed marriage that Genesis 2 describes. And one of the things you say in the book is that in order to have a see through marriage, we need to first of all be able to go a little deeper in our self-understanding than Dave is typically able to do. We've got to be able to look and say, how are we? And come up with a better answer than, I think I'm fine and now we're done, right? Pete Laughs Oh, absolutely. It's funny that he says that we don't have to go that deep, right? We don't have to go there.

I just want to enjoy a good steak. I think there's some truth and beauty in that, that we can just enjoy each other. Like, not every date night has to be this deep, like, probing of your inner child or like, finding out what your inner pains are. But at the same note, we can get in the habit of kind of living, kind of floating above everything. And I think it is so important. I mean, Andy Crouch actually came up with this term, and the term is meaningful risk. And being known in a way that lets your spouse, in this case, we're talking about marriage relationships, this also could happen in just any friendship. What the Lord lays on your heart to tell me is actually going to generate change in my own heart.

That's meaningful risk, right? And so, I think, yeah, that's, that is the call, I think, of a biblical marriage. And that's what see through marriage is all about. Well, you guys have kids. How old are your kids?

Six, four, and almost a year. Okay. Some people are thinking, I have no time for these deep discussions. You guys are kind of in a lifestyle right now, where you're busy, you're taxed, your kids are demanding, you're not sleeping. How do you have these deep conversations in the midst of that kind of lifestyle? I don't know.

I just talked to Selena while she sleeps. Yeah, no, it's hard. And, you know, I think it's important.

I think it's something that it's one of those non-negotiables, right? Like, unfortunately, sometimes, yes, you have to negotiate sleep, right? But connecting with your spouse and being honest and having a rhythm that you go to, like, either if it's once a week, at least, I would say once a week, you just have to see it as valuable.

And if you don't, then we can't be wondering why we're not connecting. Why is our marriage feel like we're distant or we're crumbling? So, for that, it's something you have to fight for, for sure. Because if we're not good, the old saying, if mom and dad aren't good, then how's the rest of the house going to be, you know, holding together? Obviously, you just sort of gave us a window into your life, but you've got little kids, so it's crazy.

You've got a vibrant ministry, so your work is all-consuming, and a lot of it's out of your house, I'm guessing, right? Every bit of it. Well, yeah, just about every bit of it. So, how in the world does a couple living your life make the marriage and being transparent a priority?

Obviously, the date is important. Is there other things you guys do? Is there a rhythm that can help other couples? Actually, I'd love to speak to this a little bit because so often we approach our work and our work lives, our careers as almost like fixed objects in this conversation, right? So, we're technically self-employed, you know, we set our own hours, there's some uniqueness there, but I will say work has taken a backseat almost daily, at least three or four times a week. There are initiatives that just aren't done because I've just said I'm not willing to pay this price. I'm not willing to be away from you. I'm not willing to be away from our kids.

I'm not willing to spend the time it takes to get these things done. So, a lot of times in American culture in particular, we have to fit it around our career, but I just kind of want to kill that sacred cow and say like, maybe career is not the end all be all of our existence, right? Aside from that, and just kind of speaking to that point, mornings have become kind of a rhythm in terms of we try to have morning coffee where we kind of sit and we do breakfast with our girls, but then they go and get kind of, you know, their hair brushed, their teeth brushed and get dressed. Everyone but the infant, I should say. And then we sit and the kind of the rule is like, you can be here, but you can't talk because we're talking. This is important to us, your mom and dad, we need to connect so that we can love you well.

And so on and so forth. Which we spoke to another couple that Jacob said a while back and they said that their kid, they have nine kids, they said that the one thing that they loved and just respected and we're so grateful for the boundary of that, like coffee time that their parents had and said, like, you can be here, but we're having this time. And so that setting that boundary, I think for your kids is loving, right?

Setting that boundary for your marriage is loving. It's, I think it's a call to holiness on some levels of and discipline. I feel like it's so much of a priority for us that we can't do without it anymore. It's get funky. Yeah. Like, and like you were saying, just like something just is up. Right.

And we can't see straight. We need to connect and we start treating each other poorly. It's like.

It becomes so obvious. Yeah. So you take a little time every day to kind of touch base at least.

That's kind of what you're saying. I mean, we're not perfect. We try to. If it's not in the morning, then it's in the evening.

Yeah. You know, we'll sit and Selena's usually reading a book in the evening and we'll talk through it. And some conversations go great.

Some are terrible, depending on how tired I am. One night she was trying to read me something and I was just like, no offense, but I just don't care about that right now. And you got really upset and I had to apologize because you weren't ready to hear that.

And so anyway, we learn. You know, I'm thinking about listeners who are hearing us talk about the value of transparency in marriage and they're thinking back on past relationships. They're thinking back on stuff from their teenage years and they're going, I don't think it's going to help my relationship. If I sit down with my husband tonight and say, you know, I've never really shared with you about this, but let me tell you about this guy I dated when I was a junior in high school. It's like, do I really need to kind of just be transparent about everything in order for us to have the kind of marriage we're supposed to have?

Hmm. That's a really good question. Because the tendency is to, as you hear what we're talking about, to kind of go through the litany of like sins that you've created or things that you regret or things that you did before you were saved. And I don't know if there's a hard and fast rule for this, but generally what we lead couples when they ask us that question is whatever that thing is that is creating you to kind of go into your hole, right? Or to hide one another, or whatever that thing is that's creating dysfunction. Like, if you had a past relationship that was really abusive and it's made you fearful in every relationship since and you're afraid of your husband or your wife because of that past experience and you've never really been healed from that because, you know, then that's a good opportunity to really be known and experience love in that pain area of your life and experience healing. Again, going back to 1 John 1, so that we can have fellowship and being cleansed from unrighteousness. Not that feeling pain is unrighteousness necessarily, but it's that fellowship that will help us walk through and really, we use the word gospel as a verb sometimes in our marriage. We gospel each other and that where we're feeling kind of that lack of belief that we remind each other of who Christ is and everything that He's done. So, to answer your question, Bob, I don't know that you have to just, you know, create a laundry list and go through the whole thing, but I do think there are areas that you'll know the Holy Spirit will prompt you to share for the sake of greater intimacy. There's some repetition sometimes that happens. Like, sometimes things will come to mind and it filters through, but if, like you said with your experience, things kind of just kept coming back to it and you kind of, you see it coming back again and again, and you're just like, man, this really, and it's, again, creating those patterns of sort of feeling like you need to hide or these feelings of being afraid, then I would say it's probably a safe bet that you need to address it. Is there a point that we can overshare? Go into too many details?

Yeah, we call that rehashing the crime scene, right? I'm just going to go back to this example, but you know, men or women who deal with pornography addiction, there's a certain level that just stops being appropriate and constructive to share like, hey, this is the nature of the addiction or here's, some of that stuff is just not edifying in any way, nor does it help you get to a place of greater reconciliation. It just kind of begins to hurt even more.

So, again, nothing replaces discernment in these conversations and if a couple is dealing with something that's so kind of damaging and does continue to create pain, then I would highly recommend getting a counselor or a pastor involved so that you're not walking through it alone. What do you say to a couple that, or the guy or the gal who's just gripped with fear? You know, they're sensing as you said, boy, I need to tell her. I need to tell him. I feel like God has prompted me to bring this into the light, but I'm just, I'm stuck. I'm so afraid. I don't know how to do or what to do. What do you tell them?

The answer I think is simple, but it's not easy. We're called to live in faith, not in fear. And to live in wisdom, not in foolishness. And so, I think if it's something that you know is going to be devastating, that to me is more of an indication of the fact that you need help getting through it than maybe that you need to not try to go through it, right? So, if that being the case, if you're a husband who's been, you know, had an affair or a wife who's had an affair, then I would start by getting biblical counseling on how to go about starting down the path of reconciliation, not just starting down the path of just exposing this for its own sake, right? Yeah, I'm thinking about a guest we had a while back on Family Life Today who had been unfaithful toward his spouse early in their marriage, and she'd never known. And it was years later, and she still didn't know. But he was feeling conviction about it.

He was still aware of it. I mean, he could not be with his wife in any sense without it coming into his mind and plaguing him, the accuser of the brethren coming back and saying, you're not being honest. He felt like he eventually had to come clean with this in order for their marriage to become what God wanted it to be.

Otherwise, he was being a hypocrite every time he was being transparent with her, because he wasn't being transparent with her. And this is where I think people have got to recognize, to your point, you may have it covered up and polished up and nobody sees what's going on, but God knows, and the Holy Spirit knows, and if the Holy Spirit keeps bringing it back to your mind and heart, then it's time to confess first to God, and then with some help, confess to your spouse. This is where I think of James 5, where it says, Confess your sins one to another, that you may be healed. And you think, well, nobody knows, so it's not hurting anybody. Well, God knows, and you know, and it's still there.

That's right. Jared You mentioned James just before that in Hebrews, right? This verse that a lot of Christians will know, this is for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, of discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Okay, so we're all very familiar with that passage. God's word is powerful, but it goes on in the next verse, it says, and no creature is hidden from his sight, but we are all naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. And he goes on, for since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, I'm going to go on all these verses now, but they're so good.

Jesus is the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. Let us then go down a few verses. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy, find grace and help in the time of need. Right, so we are gripped with fear.

I mean, think about whatever level of fear we feel about being exposed to our spouse. Imagine if we held with true regard the holiness and majesty of God and the fact that we are at risk of being and we are exposed to him, even more than we know we could be exposed to him. So, this verse is compelling believers to say, with confidence draw near to the throne.

Why? Not because you're worthy, not because you've earned it, but it's through grace that we may receive mercy and find grace and help in our time of need. And so, that same kind of grace is available, like Dave, like you were saying, and that vertical relationship with Jesus, we see that play out in our horizontal relationship in our marriage.

We can trust that God is going to use our spouse as the helpmate that they are to bring us further along in our walk towards sanctification. You know, I've also found, and I know you guys write about it in the book, the value of friendships to help us be vulnerable, not only with our friends, of course, hopefully I have met in my life and has women in our life, but there have been times where I've been so honest with my guys that they've looked at me and said, you need to tell Ann. And so, that community, it's almost like they became counselors, iron sharpens iron. Talk about that, because that's a couple chapters in your book, the value, the need to live in community and how that helps us in our transparency.

Absolutely. I think that a lot of times, at least in our experience, I think we had not really lived in true community the first few years of our marriage. So, we did not have people who kind of knew us. We didn't have people who were asking hard questions, but also walking with us and encouraging and kind of sharpening us, like you said, to have these conversations, to go into the fire and to not be afraid, right? And to share what the Lord has put on our hearts because our view of God was not, at least for me, it was easy to see Him more as like a punisher, right?

Or someone who's, if you say this, well, there's the consequences, right? And so, yes, we do experience the consequence of sin, but God doesn't leave us there. He doesn't leave the sin like that in us. He sanctifies us. The best way that we've learned that and how He does that has been through our community, through our relationships with other godly men and women and mentors.

I'm laughing because I remember writing this part of the book and we had a bit of a burr in our saddle, I'll say. Because we'd experienced so many versions of, quote unquote, Christian community. And so much of it felt inauthentic, it felt contrived, it felt like, and we're not trying to throw anyone under the bus because I feel like that's a cultural thing, right? So, that's why we talk about meaningful risk and what it means to have false vulnerability versus meaningful risk. So, this is especially good in Christian communities, especially, you know, men talking to men or if you're in a larger group with couples talking to couples. I mean, Dave, you mentioned sharing something with your guy buddies who are like, all right, that's intense.

You need to go tell Ann, you need to go tell your wife so that she can walk through this with you. So, we actually have a, like, it's a table in the book that I've just found so elucidating in my own life and it kind of contrasts false vulnerability with meaningful risk. In a falsely vulnerable setting, you might go around the group and you're all sharing, you know, how are you doing in life?

What is God doing in your life? And someone might say, oh man, work has been stressful. Oh, and then the group would respond, oh, well, let's pray that you're not stressed.

Let's pray that, you know, it all gets better. But the contrast to that, so that's the false vulnerability because the meaningful risk side is, listen, work's been stressful. I'm afraid to lose my job because I've underperformed or because I was late on this deadline or because my sales numbers are way down or the kids aren't learning in the classroom and I'm supposed to be teaching them, you know? And so, that gives us an actual window and take that example into any context that you want. That gives us a window to actually say, okay, well, let's address that fear. Why are you afraid you're going to lose your job?

Well, okay, why have you underperformed? See, that's meaningful risk versus just kind of sharing just enough to kind of get past the Q&A so they go to the next couple in the group. That's the essence of the Christian community is actually having a forum to say, listen, the playing field has been leveled.

We're all sinners saved by grace. Now, here's how we can sharpen each other, like you said. And I think somebody has to take the initiative to do that at times. I know that with a group of friends, we were having lunch and I love these women. And, you know, we were talking about all the typical things of kids and school and clothes and all different things. And I can be pretty passionate because I love to go deep. We're all wired in such a different way. So, I rudely interrupt the conversation and I say, can we stop talking about nothingness?

Which of course, some people are totally offended. And I said, it's not that I don't want to talk about this sometimes, but I want us to go deeper. I want to know what you're afraid of right now and what you're worrying about the most right now and how your marriages are. And so, I can be like a bull sometime where I'll just charge in. And I've tried to learn how to do that more tactfully. And yet, I think sometimes in marriage, one of us and in our friendships, one of us needs to take that step of saying, I want us to go a little deeper. How do you feel about that? Are you afraid? Are you into this with me? Would you go there with me? And maybe it's just one friend, but I think it's really important to do that in our marriage.

What are some of the steps we can take in a relationship when one spouse hasn't gone there and won't go there? Well, as far as the steps go, I think finding, again, our identity in Christ and realizing that He is more glorified, the more transparent that we are, right? And if our whole existence is for God's glory, which we believe it is, and we actually believe that on a radical level, I think it's radical nowadays, so that I exist for the glory of God, then I think that can become the foundation for us to begin initiating those conversations where those conversations may not feel welcome. We mentioned 1 John 1, I want to go to John chapter 1, this is verse 5. It says, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Right, so this is again, introducing Jesus into the equation and it says, there was a man sent from God, his name was John, this is John the Baptist, he came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.

John goes to the pain of explaining this, he says, he was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. So, on the cover of our book, it's got these, the stained glass window. And one of the analogies we use throughout the entire book is that we are all these imperfect shards of glass, right?

We have rough edges, we have different shades of color, we have different varying levels of intensity in terms of pigment, like, we're all different, right? And there's a stained glass window is only beautiful to the extent that light shines through it. And so, that gives us a whole context, meaning that I can now glorify God even more. And like you're saying, in those kind of chit chatty conversations, you're saying, let's go deeper, friends, not so that we can just get the juicier details. Let's go deeper so that we can greater glorify our Creator, the one who is the light.

In going deeper, I think the motivation is to have a greater glory for God in that instance. So, you asked the question, how do you initiate those conversations? I think starting there is the best place to start. And then from there, you just kind of go, don't be a bull in a china cabinet, but bring it up in a way that hopefully would be conducive to conversation. And I would add, as a dad, I know it's been difficult to do that with my adult sons. It takes courage to say, I want to know your heart. And I think one of the first steps I've learned to do is share my heart. Transparency sort of begets transparency.

Absolutely. Even in a small group, if no one's transparent, everybody just fakes it and they go home. Many people hide more at church than anywhere else. But if somebody's vulnerable and transparent, it's like, oh, I can be that honest and be fully known and fully loved. And I feel as a parent, I would encourage dads and moms that really go there. This could be a time to say, okay, I really want to know my teenage daughter or son.

And I've never had the courage to speak transparently with them. And I don't just want to see through marriage, I want to see through family. So, I'm going to lead there. So, I'd encourage men, do it, lead and see what God does. I love what you said, transparency begets transparency. Absolutely, that's true. I mean, it just, it diffuses that tension there and now people feel comfortable because you've been vulnerable.

Right, right, right. And I definitely think like, prayer is an obvious one, right? Like, praying for your spouse, God, soften their hearts. And what Dave said about just courage, I would add consistency, because it's really easy to just get shot down, right?

Like, I mean, really easy to kind of fall within yourself, I tried and it just felt horrible, so I don't ever want to do that again. No, keep trying. Remember, your identity is rooted in Christ. He is enough. Keep trying, keep going, because the consistency, I think, is where the softening happens, even though we may not see it in our spouse, right?

God is still, I think, faithful. Dave- I think a lot of us look at the current state of our marriage and go, you know, it's okay, and I don't want to do anything that would make it more challenging. I'm happy with this level of transparency and this level of intimacy. We'll just live here.

And I know there are things that if I shared them, maybe would open, but maybe not, right? StephanieH- Maybe we can go deeper and make it better. Dave- Oh, yeah, or maybe we'll just stay here and just keep it the way it is. And I think what we want our listeners to hear us saying is, it is worth it to risk it and to go deeper and to be open and to say, this is hard and this is vulnerable, and I'm not comfortable even sharing some of this reality of who I am with you, but I'm going to believe that we'll have a better marriage, a stronger, deeper, more committed, a more loving marriage. One of the things the Bible says is love rejoices in the truth.

And as long as there's not truth between you, as long as there's not this kind of transparency and vulnerability, there's part of the love that is missing from your marriage. Guys, this has been really helpful. Thanks for taking time to be with us. Thanks for being on Family Life Today.

Dave- Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us. Dave- Well, and I hope our listeners will go to our website, familylifetoday.com to get a copy of your book, See Through Marriage, Experiencing the Freedom and Joy of Being Fully Known and Fully Loved by Ryan and Selena Frederick. Again, our website, familylifetoday.com. You can order the book from us online or call to order 1-800-FL-TODAY is our number, 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. By the way, we're going to continue our conversation with Ryan and Selena. We want to talk about transparency when it comes to sexual intimacy in marriage.

So that'll happen online. You can go to familylifetoday.com and that conversation's available as a podcast. You can download it and listen as we talk about what it looks like to cultivate transparency when it comes to sexual intimacy. Finally, a quick word of thanks today to those of you who have made today's program possible. We have a small committed group of regular listeners who have taken the next step and said, I want to make sure family life today continues to be available in my community, not only for me and for my relationship with my spouse or my family, but I want to make sure it's here to help others grow in godliness in marriage and in family. Every time you make a donation, that's what you're doing.

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