Getting Closer to God and Each Other

For more and more couples getting married today, promiscuity is a part of their past, part of their experience. Ann Wilson says when that's the case, you're bringing challenges with you into marital intimacy.

We carried all of that into our wedding bed and our marriage bed, and it was like it was crowded with other people. And I felt so insecure. I felt like there was competition. I felt like, gosh, was this other girl better than me? I felt so fearful, and I worried, will he be unfaithful to me? He had had multiple partners before, will I be able to trust him?

And so there were many, many different consequences that we suffered through. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You'll find us online at familylifetoday.com.

Sometimes we are completely unaware of how sins from our past still affect our relationship 10 or 20 or even 30 years later. We'll hear more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us.

Well, we're right there, aren't we? We're listening this week to a conversation that Dennis Rainey and his wife Barbara and I had with you guys, Dave and Ann Wilson. This was more than a year ago, right after your book Vertical Marriage was released. This was right after you had gone to New York to be on The Today Show to talk about the book. Do you remember? Oh, we remember.

I remember because Dave could not sleep the night after that interview. Yeah, I came home and, you know, it's live and there's 4 million some people watching and you have regrets. Like, oh, I wish I wouldn't have said this. What did you wish you hadn't said? You know, I ended up in some crazy story to a question they asked that ended up, I mean, it's a beautiful part of our marriage where Ann was creative in the area of being romantic in our marriage. And then, you know, later I just felt like, why did I end up going there?

And Ann kept telling me— Because that's where he always ends up going, Bob. Okay, that's the end of that. We're actually going to hear a little bit about intimacy and challenges with intimacy. You've experienced challenges. All of us have experienced challenges in this area in our marriage. You talk about it in the book Vertical Marriage.

There's now a video series for couples called Vertical Marriage that's a five-part video series that can be used for small groups or adult ed. And you guys are transparent, but I think appropriate in addressing this subject. Yeah, it's a tricky subject. You have to be very careful because it's emotional.

There's been many wounds, even in our marriage and in our life in this area, and so we want to honor God and how we talk about this. Well, this was just a few weeks before you guys became the new hosts of Family Life Today that we had this conversation with Dennis and Barbara, and you talked about the challenges you'd experienced in this area. Dave and I have been the chaplains for the Detroit Lions for 30— 33 years. Three years. 33 seasons. Yeah.

And I bet you can't tell me how many playoff games we won in 33 seasons. Zero. Nope. A lot more than that. One. One. Somebody sent an email to our church a couple months ago and said, by the way, I looked up the record. Dave Wilson is the losingest chaplain in the history of the NFL.

318 losses in 33 seasons. So there you go. That's what you got. Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. So this Bible study with the wives. So all those years, I've had a Bible study with the Detroit Lions' wives.

And one particular Bible study, one of the wives said, hey, tonight's our one-year anniversary, and my husband is running a limo and he's taking me to a fancy restaurant downtown. And I said, good for you. Now, what are you going to do for him? And she said, I'm going.

What else is there to do? I said, you should make it special for him and why don't you go buy something that would be really fun that you feel comfortable in to wear underneath your dress? And she goes, that's not really who I am. And I said, but it might be really great for him.

So think about him in those terms. And so the next morning she calls me and she says, Ann, that was the best night of our relationship. And my husband was astounded because I've never done anything like that before, and at the end of that time he said, where did you get this idea? And she said, at our Bible study. And he said, which he didn't go to the Bible study, he said, I never want you to miss one of those Bible studies again. And sure enough, he shows up at our couple's Bible study. Yeah, we had our couple's Bible study for the team we always have, and her husband shows up. He had never been there, never came to chapel, anything, knew me as the chaplain, but never showed up, and there he is. That's all because the last week his wife entered that area of their marriage and brought a little spontaneity to it.

And here's the amazing thing, this guy in about six weeks surrenders his life to Jesus. They are now today with six kids in full-time ministry. And it all started with lingerie. Which is amazing, but it's one of those just wonderful stories that God used that to draw a man and a woman to Christ, and it's a beautiful part of marriage. We tend to think about this aspect of marriage in, can I say, functional terms rather than thinking about it in mystical terms. There is something profoundly mystical about intimacy in marriage and the impact it has for good or for ill on oneness between a couple, isn't there? Yeah, and one of the things that I never knew until I really dove into Scripture on sex, because I grew up, like most people, probably hearing from the church that sex is wrong, bad, evil.

I always joked that the only thing I ever heard in church growing up about sex is, it's wrong, don't do it if you do, you'll go bald. And Dave is bald for you listeners. And nobody else in here is, so we know who, anyway. Wait, wait, I'm losing some air. Is that help?

Okay. That's good to see. But no, that was the only message I ever really heard, and so I never expected that the Bible would talk about sex in such beautiful, glorious, mysterious terms. And then as I started to study it, this is one of the most amazing, beautiful, intimate gifts God ever gave us. Now, so many people hear that and they can't even appreciate that because it's been warped and it's hurt. There's pain.

And there's pain and abuse. But God's original intent was absolutely incredible, and I never learned this in school. I remember in sixth grade, they did the birds and the bees talk. They had a little thing, and you're all embarrassed as a 12-year-old boy because they're talking about floating tubes.

And anyway, I never heard this. Nobody ever told me this, that when you make love, and this can be in your marriage or outside your marriage, there's a soul connection. It is, like Bob said, mysterious. How in the world is it deeper than physical? Oh, my gosh, it's much deeper than physical, which is why it has to be so protected because you're messing with your soul here. If it's a one-night stand or a committed marriage relationship, you're giving everything, not just physical but spiritual, even soulish, to that person.

So that's why God says, protect this. And it's one of the reasons why you guys early in your marriage struggled in this area because, as you've shared, you started marriage the way most couples start marriage today, having already been sexually active with other people. And you brought that into your marriage, and now the two becoming one has all kinds of baggage attached to it.

Yeah. I'm really glad you brought that up, Bob. Thanks for sharing our laundry with the world. Well, you've shared this with folks regularly, and I'm not trying to betray any confidences, but this is a part of your story. No, I'm kidding, and I want Ann to talk about this because we had no idea, no idea how our past sexual experiences would bring luggage, baggage, pain into our new marriage. Well, I don't think anybody talks about it.

I mean, our world is saturated with sex, with pornography, with things on TV, at the movies, everything, but nobody talks about the pain, whether it's sexual abuse, whether it's addiction to pornography. But for Dave and I, what happened was we carried all of that into our wedding bed and our marriage bed, and it was like it was crowded with other people. And I felt so insecure.

I felt like there was competition. I felt like, gosh, was this other girl better than me? I felt so fearful, and I worried, will he be unfaithful to me? He had had multiple partners before.

Will I be able to trust him? And so, there were many, many different consequences that we suffered through. I remember one time we went to a wedding probably six or eight months after our wedding, and we're sitting in this church, and I could tell something's wrong with Ann. Like, she's not enjoying this, and we get in the car to drive home.

I go, what were you thinking? She goes, I was just looking around the church, and I saw three or four women that you had been with. And, you know, for me, it's like, well, that was in the past. It's all done. Oh, guess what? That is the past, but the past is right here.

And if I could have taken those back in that second, I would, but I couldn't. So now, we're in this marriage saying, oh my gosh, we've got to deal with not just how hard it is to be married now. It's like we brought stuff in that we've got to work through. You think it's just the bedroom. It's so much deeper than the bedroom. What does deal with mean?

What does that look like? I mean, when you've got this, and you're there, and you go, okay, we know this is here. We know this is a part of our past.

We don't like that it's a part of our past. We can feel it affecting our marriage now. Do we go to a marriage counselor?

What do you do to get to the point where you can be together as husband and wife, and that bed is no longer crowded? And my answer, my first answer would be we talk. We talk this through. And again, I would not encourage a couple to go into details about your past, but I needed to let Ann know enough, and she needed to share with me. Because one of the things I was so naïve was about abuse. And again, I thought, well, Ann's had some abuse in her past. It's way back there.

Twenty years ago, it will not affect today. Oh, as a spouse, it's like I need to understand. What do you think?

How do you feel? How can I love you? And she's feeling the same thing toward me. So there's a lot of talking. We talked about it previously, we had to go to a place of forgiveness with each other, and then being able to let that go and move forward. But again, it started with hearing, listening, and trying to lovingly be a partner to one another. And I think, too, I love that God has do-overs. I love that He renews our mind, like Romans 12 says. I love that with time, we heal, and I think because of our honesty and openness, that helped.

I think a lot of people should go to a counselor who can be a third party to be a neutral voice and to help them walk through some issues that might be hard to discuss. And when we were in seminary, we were taking classes about how to be a counselor, and in some of those classes, that's when the abuse came up. And it flooded me. I was overwhelmed because I had tucked it away, not thinking that it was doing anything to harm my marriage and our intimacy, but it was doing a lot. And so, I think that Dave was overwhelmed with my barrage of emotions and feeling like I was tainted, and I had so much shame and embarrassment, and it was hard. I'm thinking about people listening to this and thinking to themselves, I'm not going to have this conversation with my spouse. I mean, first of all, there's shame and guilt on my part. I don't want to revisit that. Secondly, it's just going to drive the wedge deeper between us because it's going to bring hurt and pain to the other person.

Why haven't you ever told me about this? So they go, no, no, the safest thing to do is to try to keep this walled off, and as long as nobody ever knows that any of this happened, we can muddle along with what we're doing. And you're saying that's the wrong answer? Yeah, and I'm saying I totally understand that thought. I've been there.

I honestly still feel this way. It's easier for me to talk about sex on a stage at church than it is in my bedroom with my wife. It's scary. It's intimate. It takes courage to say, I'm scared to even bring this up. And again, you don't need to go into details.

And every couple's different about what needs to be revealed, but it's like get on your knees, ask God for wisdom, ask God for strength, and open your mouth and say, we need to talk. Let's go there. And it's scary. But I will say this, because we've done it.

God will meet you right in the moment of your fear, and He'll walk you through. And we are closer today than we ever would have been if we had never brought this up or gone through that journey. And honestly, I can say this, 38 years into marriage, our sex life's better now than it ever could or would have been.

It is. And part of it is because we've decided to go there with each other as honestly as we could. And I was going to ask you, Barbara and Dennis, you guys have been married longer than we have. I see it as having hills and valleys in our relationship with intimacy. How have you guys, do you find that's true?

Yeah, I definitely think it's an up and down experience. And I think that as you grow and you change, there are more discoveries to be made about one another. And I completely agree with what you both have said about being transparent in that area of your relationship, because we've done that too. And it's made such a difference, because the more you're known, the more you feel safe. And the more you feel safe, then you can experience intimacy. And if you don't feel safe, and you don't feel known and welcomed, then you can't go to the intimacy.

It's a progression. You can't jump instantly into intimacy without first crossing those bridges of safety and knowing one another. So, yeah, I agree with you totally. I think you're touching on where most men miss it in this area. I think men do not understand the need for his wife to be safe and to feel safe as she gives herself to her husband. 1 John 4.18 says, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. I think the husband who is finding things are not going well with his wife in the bedroom needs to ask his wife, Do you feel safe with me? Do you trust me? Can you give yourself wholeheartedly to me? And if not, what am I doing that is creating fear? Ooh, that's a courageous thing to ask.

It really is. And then listen. And listen carefully to what is said and what isn't said, because the real assignment of a husband, I think, he's commanded to love his wife as Christ loved the church. So if our assignment is to love, and 1 John 4 says perfect love casts out fear, your assignment is to present your wife before Christ, holy, blameless, without spot.

That means there's no spots of fear. And that it's the wise husband who becomes a student of his wife and asks the question, How can I love you in that way, practically speaking? Not just with words, but with attitude, with actions, and being tender, and being gentle with his wife. You know, because we're still on this journey. This wasn't just year one or year five.

It's been a continual learning, growing process. Dennis, what you just said, I never understood what made her feel loved. And we got in fights about this, about the sexual part of our relationship, is I wanted her to be more interested in sex. It felt like I wanted it more, and she wasn't. Of course, we got little kids, and I have no understanding of what she's carrying around.

I'm just, like, frustrated. And yet, I didn't know that a woman longs to be cherished and loved. And I honestly thought, well, making love makes you feel loved. I'll never forget the day we read, and I don't even know if it's still out there. You might know if Willard Harley's book, His Needs, Her Needs, still exists. It does. But I remember picking it up, and he had the top five needs of a woman, top five needs of a man, because his subtitle was How to Affair Proof Your Marriage.

If you don't know what your wife's needs are, somebody else could come in and meet those. So I'm like, oh, my gosh, got to read this. So I look real quick. I didn't read the book. I just picked up the chapter titles to see if I'm going to read it. He's like, top five needs of a man, number one, sex. And then I look at the woman's, and she doesn't have sex in the top five. So Ann remembers this.

I brought the book to her. And again, I'm a young husband trying to understand this. I'm frustrated. So I'm like, okay, help me understand this. I look at his top five needs for men, and he says sex is number one, and I have to agree.

I think he's right. Sex isn't even in your top five. Why isn't it in your top five? And you remember? She looked at me, and she said, oh, it's number one, two, and three. And I looked down, and I'm not kidding.

It was a revelation for me to understand. Here's what he said. Guys, you better be writing this down out there, by the way.

You better write this down, because I think he's right. Or at least ask your wife, is this true for you? He said, number one for a woman, affection. Non-sexual touch, which I had to ask Ann, what is that?

I didn't even know, you know? And it's like holding hands and putting your arm around her and just being close. It's like affection, number one. Number two, conversation. That's talking, communicating. Number three, honesty and openness.

Yeah, those two, those second two. Like, we want to know you, and we want our husbands to know us. And I was mad at her for not having wanting sex with me. And what she had every right to do is go, you aren't affectionate. We never talk.

I don't know your heart. And when I realized, that's foreplay. Not that it's all about sex, but it's like, I am not being Christ. I am not serving my wife to say, if that's her number one need, sacrificially love her, and it's going to end up better even in the bedroom.

But that isn't the goal. It was like, I want her to feel cherished and loved. And that's what sex is to my wife. I want to know what your response is to what he just said. So you hear those three things.

For a man who doesn't get it, how can a wife help him understand? That's kind of where we were. And so I remember having Dave come to me with that book, like, what is this? And when I said those are the top three, like, when we talk, that's romance. When you just touch my arm, open a door, and hold my hand, I feel like you love me, and you're pursuing me. And I remember saying, and it feels like you don't pursue me anymore.

You pursue me sexually, but you don't pursue me relationally. And that really hurts, and it makes me feel unloved. Just recently, our kids were home for a while, and we were all sitting in the other room watching TV. And one of my daughters-in-law was on the sofa, and my son was in a chair across the room. And my daughter-in-law just kind of patted the seat next to her and said, Why don't you come sit here next to me? And he said, This chair's really comfortable.

That's a rookie mistake. And she pats it again, so he gets up and sits next to her. And then something happens. He gets up and goes out of the room for something and comes back and sits back in the chair that he'd been in. Come on.

No, he does. And I looked at him and said, Son, you are not paying careful attention. I mean, I said it in front of her. That spot on the sofa is still open, right? And the reason that I was smiling while I was doing that is because I thought, How many times has Mary Ann said to me, Come sit next to me? And as a guy, I'm thinking, The recliner is so much more comfortable than sitting next to you on the sofa. Why does that matter?

But for a woman, sitting next to me matters, doesn't it? Okay, let's talk to the wives that they've told their husbands that, and they're still not listening. They don't get it, yeah. Yeah, how do we encourage them, Barbara? Thanks, Ann.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's a hard one because we are so different. We've had that conversation, Dennis and I have multiple times, because our needs are just different.

But that's the way God made us. And if we really love each other, then we need to learn to speak each other's language, love language. But I think, too, it's also being patient and trusting God's timing and praying that God will open our husbands' eyes and ears to see and understand. And I think we live in such an instant culture, too, that that's part of the problem. We expect change to be really fast, and sometimes it's not.

Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. Yeah, in our marriage, we've been having this conversation for decades and growing. I mean, I'm sort of excited about the next decade.

As strange as that may sound, we've grown and grown and grown and, not grown, we have matured over the years in this area. And I really would say to the guys, and it's true both ways, step up. It's that simple. It's like the bedroom and the sexual relationship's not about me.

It really isn't. I want to give my recipients, too, in every area of my marriage, including the bedroom. I want to consider her needs more important than my needs. That's what Christ did for us, and He modeled that for us.

Now Christ lives in me. It's about her feeling loved. And again, if you have a spouse reciprocating that, you're going to have a beautiful sexual relationship. If they don't, it isn't about them. It's like, I want to love them in such a way that they feel valued and cherished, so I'm not an affectionate guy.

It doesn't matter. She is and longs for it, so I'm going to step up and be Christ to her and give affection even if it's not my natural bent. Well, again, we've been listening to a conversation we had a little more than a year ago, Dennis and Barbara Rainey and I talking with Dave and Ann Wilson right as their book, Vertical Marriage, was being released.

There's now a video series that accompanies that book, and I've had this experience when we speak on this subject at Weekend to Remember Getaways. Couples are so appreciative when we open the door on this and talk candidly and biblically about this in an appropriate context because so many of them are trapped with questions or insecurities or shame or whatever, and when the physical intimacy in your marriage is not working, that affects everything about your marriage. Yeah, and as we all know, everybody else is talking about it. The culture is constantly talking about it.

In an inappropriate way, right. Yeah, and it's often not truth. And so, what is God's heart? What is God's truth on this?

It needs to be discussed, and it can really help people. Well, the first time that Dave and I went to the Weekend to Remember marriage conference, it was in Chicago. I was 19. Dave was 22. I did not grow up in the church. I didn't grow up attending a church. And so, the first time we sat in this session on sexual intimacy, it was the first time I had ever heard God's game plan for intimacy in a marriage.

It was mind-blowing to me because I had never heard this before because I had only heard the world's plan. Yeah, and I have to think, as you guys get together tomorrow night and for the next three weeks with listeners for a small group that you're going to be hosting, the question of God's plan for intimacy is probably going to show up in the small group conversation at some point over the next three weeks. Dave and Ann are going to be hosting on Thursday nights for the next three weeks, starting tomorrow night and then continuing through May after that. They're going to be hosting a small group around vertical marriage. You can sign up to be a part of that small group.

It's going to meet at 8 o'clock Central Time. And when you sign up to be part of the small group, which will be a Facebook group, you'll have access to the first session of the vertical marriage series, which you can watch whenever you'd like. And then when you come to the small group, everybody will have watched session one, and the conversation can begin from there. So go to familylifetoday.com. I don't know if you're part of a small group right now, if your small group has been meeting online, or if you just haven't been meeting for a while, or you're meeting out in somebody's driveway. Whatever's happening, you can join an online small group that Dave and Ann are going to be hosting starts tomorrow night and continues for three weeks. Go to familylifetoday.com for all the information, and that will get you access to the first session from vertical marriage that you'll need to watch before the small group begins.

Okay, all that make sense? Again, the website familylifetoday.com is where you can get the information. If you have any questions, call us at 1-800-FL-TODAY. If you want a copy of Dave and Ann's book, Vertical Marriage, that's available for order online at familylifetoday.com. And then the complete video series is also available for anybody who wants to use that in a small group or a Sunday school class in the summer or fall, whenever those start up again. All the information is available on the website at familylifetoday.com.

Or again, call if you have any questions, 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. And we've got the president of Family Life, David Robbins, here with us. And this online small group thing that we're doing with Dave and Ann starting tomorrow night, we're not the first people to come up with creative ways to employ the video series and to get people gathered together for a small group even while we're socially distanced. Yeah, it's been really neat to hear from different couples who started leading it when it was launched earlier this year. When they could still get together with their friends.

That's right. And then midway, we started hearing people move to Zoom groups and do all these creative things. And one couple from California said this. Recently, we hosted Family Life's new small group study, Vertical Marriage, with 10 couples and had to move it to Zoom due to COVID-19. They said it was an incredible small group and laid the foundation for what we are now walking through. They went on to say we watched the Family Life TV episode after we finished Vertical Marriage about grieving at a distance. And our discussions led to such sweet moments together, talking about grief that we are experiencing now and in our past. And then she said everyone in the group opened up and shared things that they've been holding onto.

And almost every single one of us broke down and cried in some way. Our relationships grew deeper and deeper as we shared together. And this is all over Zoom and them walking faithfully together, being friends together in this unique time. And I just think it makes the point that it doesn't have to be fancy.

You certainly don't have to have it all together. Every one of us can take the intentional step of faith to lead a small group, to gather a group of people, say, hey, I want to grow my marriage, do you? Vertical Marriage video series is such a great resource, easy resource, in order to connect with other couples and have really intentional conversations. And, you know, as hard as navigating the coming months may still be, we are seeing families hunger for God and growing together more than they have in a very long time. And that's our prayer that through this season, families will grow closer to God, stronger together, and will serve their neighbors with compassion in the gospel. Thank you for being a significant part of what God is doing in the home in our day. And you know who's making all of this possible is friends of family life who are continuing to support this ministry during these challenging times.

We are so grateful for those of you who are monthly legacy partners and those of you who from time to time will get in touch with us and make a donation so that we can continue to effectively develop godly marriages and families who change the world one home at a time. Right now, if you're able to help with the donation, we'd love to say thank you by sending you a copy of Barbara Rainey's new book, which is called My Heart Ever His. It's a book about praying. It's actually a book of prayers for some of the difficult circumstances we face in life. The book is our thank you gift when you go online today to make a donation at familylifetoday.com, or you can call to donate at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And we hope you can join us back again tomorrow when we're going to talk about what is a challenge for a lot of people, particularly a lot of wives and moms.

It's the issue of wanting to be in control of life and kids and even your husband. When Popkin joins us to talk about how she has wrestled with being a control girl, I hope you can join us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.