The Power A Wife Has For Building Intimacy In Marriage

Do you spend more time during the day thinking about your husband's weaknesses or his strengths?

Here's Dr. Julie Slattery. When we focus on something, we tend to find it. And when my heart is focused on what I'm unhappy about and what I'm discouraged about, I will find it. But I want to ask the Lord to help me focus on where's the hero? Where's the man that you created my husband to be? I focus on that. And here's the thing. When we treat our husbands like he is that hero, he starts becoming it.

He starts stepping into it because there's power there. And the Lord really convicted me in the power of my words in whether I'm going to call out that hero or I'm going to discourage him from becoming that. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. There is a hero inside almost every husband. The question is, what can a wife do to help that hero step forward?

We'll talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I think most wives want to help their husbands be all that God wants them to be, don't you think? I think so, and I think we think we're great helpers and we have all the solutions and we can help our husbands be the best men ever.

If he'd just listen to me more and do what I say. Yeah. I've never heard that.

Never. We're going to hear a message today. This is a message we heard from our friend, Dr. Julie Slattery, not long ago. Julie is an author and a speaker and she has been with us at a number of Family Life events. She was speaking on the power a wife has for building intimacy and oneness in her marriage, and she said a wife's got to recognize that her husband is longing for his wife's respect, he's longing for a helper, a companion, and he's longing for physical intimacy and the relationship. Those are priorities for him.

I agree. And I think sometimes as women we can hear these and go, blah, blah, we've heard this all before, but I think that we underestimate the power we have as women because we really do have a lot of power. Julie is going to explain how a wife can use her power well in these areas and how she can avoid some of the pitfalls. So let's dive in and listen. Here's Dr. Julie Slattery on the power a wife has for building intimacy in her marriage.

Well, you know it says in Titus chapter 2 that the older women are supposed to encourage the younger women to love their husbands, and I turned 50 a few months ago. Yeah. Thank you. You're making me feel better.

There's nothing to cheer about. But that I think officially means that I'm the older woman now. So I am here to encourage you in your marriage, encourage you in how to build intimacy in your marriage. And to start I want to ask you to think back to your wedding day. Do you remember your wedding day? Do you remember that you felt really in love on your wedding day? Do you remember the hopes and the dreams that you had for your marriage? Do you remember what you loved about your husband on your wedding day? Well, this is a picture of my wedding day 25 years ago. Look at that.

I know. We're smooching, getting warmed up for the honeymoon. And I was very in love with my husband on my wedding day and just felt so much love for him and excitement about our journey ahead and what that would be, the adventure that God had for us. But let me just tell you that a few days after this picture was taken, maybe four or five days after this picture was taken, I was on my honeymoon and I woke up in a panic. And it was like, oh my goodness, what did I just do?

This is for life. I mean, talk about buyer's remorse. And everything that I loved about my husband within a few days of marriage started to take on a little bit of a different shade. And so the fact that he was fun-loving and adventurous that really excited me when we were dating, when we got married, it became, well, being on time is not so important to him.

Getting things done is not so important to him. But the fact that he was just spontaneous, again, I love these things about him, but I didn't love them as much when we got married. Somebody once said that marriage is a romance in which the hero dies in the first chapter. And I think we spent a lot of time in our marriage trying to find that hero again, trying to build intimacy. You know what I know about women, especially you women, is you know how to work hard on your marriage, don't you?

I mean, that's the reason that you're on this cruise. Well, the food and other things, but you're here to work hard on your marriage. And the research shows that women work harder on their marriage than men do.

You're like, that doesn't surprise me. Like, women buy 90% of the marriage books. Even the ones written for men, you buy them and give them to your husband, true? You read it to him, like, look what it says here.

But here's the thing. Even though we know how to work hard on our marriage, a lot of times we don't know how to work wisely on our marriage. And I found this to be true in my own marriage. I know how to work really hard, but sometimes all of my hard work actually seems to sabotage intimacy.

Let me give an example. About five years ago, it was a Sunday morning. You know where I'm going with this. My husband and I were getting ready for church. The kids are getting ready for church. And I told you, he's a spontaneous guy, so he's not on time. We're really not on time for church very often. But I have to say, in his defense, my definition of on time is 15 minutes early, right?

I want to be there in the front row ready to worship. But we were running late. We were running particularly late this Sunday. So we get the three kids in the car, and my husband feels bad that we're running late. So he's like, I'm going to make it up to you, babe.

Watch this. And he's like a NASCAR, which doesn't make me any happier. So I'm grumpy about the fact that we're late. And I'm grumpy and terrified about the fact that he's taking our lives into his hands with his road skills. And we're driving to church, and we hit one of those lights that's like yellow and turning red.

You know where you have to make that split decision? And me, I usually always push the brake, and he always guns it. And this one was really squeezing the lemon. I mean, it was like pushing through a yellowish red light. And I knew he was going to go for it. And I'm like, stop! And he slammed on the brake, and he said a very naughty word. And so now I'm not only mad about the fact that we're late, and the fact that he's driving too fast, but now I'm really mad about the fact that he said a naughty word in front of our sons. And so I'm like, great.

I said this out loud. Nice job, hon. Nice thing to say to the kids on the way to church. Well, let's just say he didn't feel cozy towards me. And it was a really good thing that we were driving to church, because how long can you stay mad at each other when you're worshipping?

I think we made it through about one song. Praise you, Lord. And then it melts your heart, and then you hold hands. God just softens your heart.

But what I realized in that situation is that I was working hard and actually doing on paper the right things. Is it right to want to go to church? Is it right to be on time for church? Is it right to obey the traffic laws?

Is it right to not swear? But I was doing it all the wrong ways, and actually all my hard work ended up in sabotaging the intimacy, the kind of spirit that I wanted to have with my husband, and I found myself doing that again and again and again. Can any of you relate? All right, you've done this? But what I've realized as a wife is that for me to use my influence wisely, for me to actually build intimacy, I have to understand my husband's needs. And so I'm going to talk to you this morning about your husband's needs, and you're like, oh, great. Can't we talk about my needs?

Well, let's hope that in the men's session they already did that. But here's the thing. I bet you already know your needs. I'll bet you spend a lot of time thinking about your needs.

And here's the other thing. Women have tried to fix their marriages for thousands of years by focusing on their needs, and it hasn't worked because there's no power in focusing on your needs. And I'm going to spend the rest of the time that we had this morning sharing with you how the Lord has taught me that if I really want to build intimacy in my marriage, I do it by focusing on what my husband needs.

So are you ready for this? All right, so we're going to talk about what guys need. So let me ask you, what do you think your husband needs in marriage? Just yell it out. Sex, oh, my goodness.

Where did you hear that? That was resounding. What else do men need in marriage? Somebody's still saying sex, more sex. I heard validation, I heard respect. What else? What's that? Food, food. That's important. Appreciation, honor, television.

What's fun? Kindness, adventure. Boy, you guys are needy. They think we're needy? I really think that men ultimately just need three things from marriage, and there are three very important things.

The first one is respect. How many of you have heard before that your husband needs your respect? All right, how many of you feel like you really understand that?

Just a few of you. I don't feel like I ever really understood that. I just know we're told, you know, you need love, he needs respect. There's a book written about it. The Bible talks about respecting your husband, and I would say that for many years of my marriage, I didn't really understand this respect thing.

Like, why is it such a big deal, and what does it actually look like practically? Until the Lord started to show me as a clinical psychologist and working with couples that this respect need is really unique to the masculine soul, because men are wired with a unique vulnerability, and that unique vulnerability is they long to be competent, but they're afraid that they're not. I titled this talk Finding the Hero in Your Husband, and about 20 years ago as a young wife, I wrote a book called Finding the Hero in Your Husband as I was trying to understand how to build intimacy in my marriage. And one of the things that they make you do as a young author is they make you do book signings, which is very painful. And so I had this book, Finding the Hero in Your Husband, and they had me go to a mall and sit behind a card table with a poster of the book cover behind me, like on a Saturday. And very few people would actually stop to buy a book, because they're like, I don't know her.

But here's what I noticed. I would sit there for hours in malls behind this card table with this book behind me, and I would just watch couples in the mall on Saturday. And so here's what I'd see. These women would be walking with a purpose, and they'd be shopping.

And they're on the mission, and the husband is dragging behind them, like, I really don't want to be in a mall. And then he'd look over and he'd see the poster of Finding the Hero in Your Husband. He'd be like, hey, hey, come here, honey, honey.

Look, is that me? Am I your hero? And the woman would be like, yeah, sure, come on.

Or I had other women that would just look at the poster and go, right. And people reacting to this concept of finding the hero in your husband was so interesting, because here's the thing, that's something you can agree on in marriage. You both want your husband to be a hero. Your husband wants to be your hero. Have you thought of that?

But here's the thing. You know every reason why he's not your hero. Marriage is so vulnerable, because it exposes our deepest needs and our deepest fears. And one of our husband's deepest needs is this idea of validation or competence.

It's like he's the kid at bat in a baseball game in the ninth inning with two outs, and the team is down by one run, and he's always wondering, am I going to be the guy that strikes out and lets everybody down, or am I going to be the guy that comes through? And when I started to realize that in my marriage, it changed the way that I viewed what it means to respect my husband. You see, I believe that the biblical teaching for women on respect and really respecting the leadership of her husband speaks directly to this. It's speaking to the hero. It's calling forth the hero. It's telling your husband that you believe in who he is, even though you have enough experience with him that you see his weakness.

You've seen him let you down in the past. This is one of your husband's number one needs is to feel your respect, to truly know that you believe that he's your hero. Now we'll talk about some of the tension of that in a minute. But let's talk about the second thing a husband needs. A husband needs companionship. Another way to put this is a husband needs your help.

You know, I think in the Christian church, we talk a lot about the respect piece and how our husband needs us to encourage him and cheer for him. But that's just one part of the equation because the scripture says that when man was alone, that God said, not good. Not good for him to be alone. I will make him a helper that's suitable for him, that I'll make him a companion. In other words, he's inadequate by himself. He can't be a hero unless he has this helper that is bringing another part of the equation. So the scripture says that he who finds a wife finds a good thing.

And you know the research bears that out. Married men, for example, work harder, are less likely to be fired, they earn 10 to 20 percent more income, they're happier, they tend to live almost 10 years longer than their single counterpart. Just by being married to you, you're a helper to your husband. And I think a lot of times when we talk about women being a helper, it sounds like, oh, that's like a second place role. But that's not at all what scripture presents it as. Actually, the word in the Bible that is translated as helper is the word ezer. And that same word is used to describe the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives, that he comes alongside and helps us. Now, that's not to say that your job is to be your husband's Holy Spirit.

Let's not take it that far. Now, you may have mentioned that as we talk about these two needs, respect and companionship, that there's a tension there. You realize a tension? When you help your husband, often it feels like you're not respecting him. There's a tension of, wait a minute, do I tell him what to do? Do I tell him how to dress?

Do I tell him why he's wrong because I'm helping? But that deteriorates the respect that he feels. He no longer feels like he's my hero if I'm helping all the time. And I've definitely felt this tension in my marriage. There are times where I've said to my husband in so many words, I wish you would lead us more.

How many of you have wanted that from your husband? But then when he takes a step of leadership, he's like, no, no, no, no, not that way. I want you to lead, but lead the way I tell you. And what kind of a double bind is that? And so men are just like, I give up. I don't know whether she wants me to lead or follow her. And we do feel this tension as women to know what does respect look like along with bringing our strength, along with bringing our insight, along with bringing accountability.

And that's a difficult line to walk. I think about it like two wings of an airplane. And if one wing gets to be too much, we're out of balance.

And if the other wing gets to be too much, we're out of balance. And there are some times in marriage where we can be encouraging all the time. We can be supporting our husbands. We can be speaking life into them. But we're not confronting issues that need to be confronted.

We're not speaking when the Holy Spirit lays it on our heart to speak. We're not helping. And there are other times in marriage when we're all about helping. But our husband doesn't feel support. He doesn't feel respect.

He doesn't feel like he's that hero. He just feels like he's following along with what we're telling him to do. And so that's a very difficult tension to walk in. Here's one thing that the Lord has taught me.

Think about these two needs almost like a bridge. And when you respect your husband, you're laying down planks. And when you're bringing help, you're walking on the planks.

And I can only walk as far as I've laid down support. Like, if I'm not respecting my husband, if he doesn't know I believe in him, then my help feels like a threat. But if I'm speaking life into him and he trusts me, then he actually welcomes my help and my input. So those are two of the needs. And you guys right out of the gate talked about the third need. You wanna talk about sex?

That was not enthusiastic. Let me put it this way. Do you want me to help you understand your husband's need for sex?

Yes, okay. So let's talk about sex for a minute. And guys are like, please talk about it for more than a minute. In about 80% of marriages, men will identify sex as a unique separate need. It's something that they feel like they need in marriage.

Now I say 80%, it's not 100%. And so that means that in about 20% or maybe more of the marriages represented in this room, you're like, I don't know what the big deal about husbands wanting sex is because that's not our marriage. That's never been our marriage. And if you're in that situation, I wanna tell you you're not weird, your marriage is not weird. It's just that we have different dynamics in our marriage and so there's a tendency for this to be a really important need in a man's life, but it's not true in every single marriage. But I think even if your husband's not somebody that has a high sex drive and talks about sex, sex is still an important need to understand in his life. So why is sex such a need for a man? Like why does he feel like this is a way that he connects with you?

And why do we not understand this? I remember this one time I was counseling this couple and they came in to work on their marriage and I asked them early on in the counseling, I said to each of them, what would you like to see changed in your marriage? If this counseling is successful, what would be different for you? And the woman, she was just waiting for this question. She had a whole list of things that she had brought her husband to work on. And so she's like, well, he'll understand me more, he'll listen, he'll help me with the kids, he'll pick up after himself. You know, she had like five things that she wanted to change about her husband. And her husband was just looking at his feet, looking dejected, and I said, well, how about you?

What would you like to see different if counseling works? And he just looked up and he goes, oh, I don't know. More sex? And the wife looked at me and is like, like, do you get this? You get this guy that I'm married to?

That's all he cares about. And for a woman-to-woman thing, I was like, I know. Like, there's more to life than sex. There's more to marriage than sex. But I had to put on my psychologist hat.

And so I was like, wait a minute. All right, let's look at the fact that you brought this guy to counseling and you've got a whole list of things that you want him to change. You do your thing and you roll your eyes at it. And I was like very convicted in that moment about my own marriage. Because often we hear this cliché that sex is important to men, that we're supposed to be engaging in this, and we don't take it seriously. We don't look at why is this such an important aspect to marriage for our husbands.

And there are a lot of reasons that we could talk about why sex is important in marriage, but I just want to mention one right here, that sex is really an important way that your husband can feel close to you. You see, there's this hormone in our body called oxytocin. And oxytocin is known as the cuddle hormone. It's what makes you feel close to someone. And so women, ladies, when we have babies, when we give birth, when we breastfeed, we get flooded with oxytocin in our bodies that make us feel close to our baby, which is a really good thing. Because here comes out this little lizard-looking thing. And because of oxytocin, you look at this baby, and you're like, it's the most beautiful baby in the world. Now if you go back and look at those pictures many years later, you're like, well, he actually wasn't that cute.

But in the moment, you thought he was. And God is brilliant. Because without oxytocin, I think most of us would not take our babies home from the hospital. And oxytocin is like these rose-colored glasses that help you endure the difficulties of being a mom. The research actually shows that because of oxytocin, a mother will have no problem changing her baby's diaper. Like, her baby's poop literally smells less offensive to her than any other baby's poop.

Like, this is true. And so she's changing, her baby just had a blowout, doesn't bother her at all. She's, like, eating a sandwich while she's changing them. Hey, is that mustard? You know, it doesn't bother her. Yeah. Same woman goes into the nursery and changes another baby's diaper, and she's like, ugh, what do they feed this child?

Is that soy milk? Because of oxytocin, she's bonded, and she looks past the negative. Now, women, we have oxytocin in our bodies at varying degrees all throughout our life.

The most is in childbirth. But if you go out to have coffee with a friend and you're sharing deeply, you'll get a dose of oxytocin that makes you feel really close to your friend. If your husband holds your hand, if he gives you a back rub, you feel oxytocin. But men don't work this way. They don't have a lot of oxytocin in their bodies, and you can't buy it at Whole Foods.

And so they don't naturally feel close to us. The only time a man will get a significant dose of oxytocin is right after sexual intimacy. And when I realize this as a wife, I'm like, oh. So when he says, it makes me feel close to you, that's like really true. It's not just a line that they use.

Like, it's for real. And so I started to realize that this thing, sexual intimacy, was not just a duty. It was actually a way that I could connect with my husband and that he could feel close to me. And so there's a lot of reasons why sex is important to men in marriage, why it's a unique need. And it is a need for women, but we don't usually identify it as a separate need, but men do.

And if we don't recognize that God created them this way, then we miss one of the very critical needs that they have. So rehearse with me. What are the three needs we talked about? They're right up here.

Same with me. Respect, companionship, and sex. All right, so what do all those things have to do with building intimacy? You're like, I don't know, please tell me. All right, these three things have to do with building intimacy is these three needs represent your power zones as a wife.

You see, here's the thing. When you have a need that I can meet, it gives me power with you. If you have a need that only I can meet, it gives me a lot of power with you. It gives me a lot of influence.

If you found out that you had a medical disease and I had the antidote and I was the only one on the ship with the antidote, I would get your attention right away because I'm the only one that can help you meet that need. Now, by God's design, He has given our husbands three very significant needs that by His design, you are the one who is supposed to meet those needs. And these three things give you power. And so your three power zones, and when I say power zones, I mean this is where you can influence intimacy in your marriage. These three power zones are how you can build intimacy. And like I said, there are many times where women try to fix their marriage by thinking about what they want instead of realizing that the power is actually working on what he needs.

So let's talk about these three power zones. First of all, respect. Now, how does respect, your husband's need for respect, give you power? Well, it gives you power because, as we said, your husband desperately wants to be your hero.

He wants to be competent. Think about the fact that he wakes up every day without knowing this or without saying it out loud, but think about him waking up every day with a question, Am I your hero? And you've got to make a decision, thumbs up or thumbs down, pass or fail. And again, you know all the reasons why, and that's not so sure.

But you have the power in your tongue of death or life. For example, do you realize that you get to paint a picture for your children of who your husband is? That your words frame, for example, whether he's a workaholic that only cares about money and success or that he's working so hard because he loves us and he sacrifices for us. You get to paint the picture of which one is it.

And the thing is, both are probably at some level true. When I've struggled in my marriage, there have been a lot of times when the Lord has brought me back to this idea of respect and how do I feel about my husband and what am I saying about him and what am I saying to him. And I can remember this particular time, maybe about 10 years ago in my marriage, where I was really struggling.

I was really struggling to feel respect for my husband, to feel intimacy, to feel like I still wanted to work on this thing. And somebody gave me a really convicting book called What's It Like to Be Married to Me? Have any of you read that book by Linda Dillo? It's a very courageous book to read.

And one of the challenges in that book was to sit down and write a list of the things that were good about your husband, the things you were grateful for. And the challenge really came out of the scripture in Philippians chapter four. You know that verse Philippians chapter four verse eight? Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think on these things. And I realized that I had been reading this passage not if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, but if everything is excellent and praiseworthy.

You ever felt that way? Like not I'm going to think about this because I'm looking for the one thing that's excellent and praiseworthy, but I can't praise them unless everything is perfect. And the Lord really convicted me with that verse that God calls me to focus on not only when things are good but whatever is good about my husband. So I sat down with the Lord to make my list and to be perfectly honest, I started with a list of the things that frustrated me.

The book didn't say to do that, but I just felt like I had to get it off my chest. So I sat down, wrote down all these things I was frustrated about and then I'm like, okay, Lord, I'm going to put that list aside and I started writing down what I love about my husband. Everything from I love his blue eyes. I love the fact that he's tall and has broad shoulders. I love the fact that he's funny.

I love the fact that he's dependable. And I just wrote down as many things that I could think of that I loved about my husband. And by the time I got done writing down that list, I was just, I really was in tears because I saw all the things that I was overlooking that I wasn't focused on. And you know, when we focus on something, we tend to find it. And when my heart is focused on what I'm unhappy about and what I'm discouraged about, I will find it. But I want to ask the Lord to help me focus on where's the hero? Where's the man that you created my husband to be? I focus on that.

And here's the thing. When we treat our husbands like he is that hero, he starts becoming it. He starts stepping into it because there's power there. And you and I can walk into the same situation and choose to focus on the negative or the positive. Have you ever walked in after being away at work or gone and your husband is maybe with the kids and the first thing you notice when you walk in is how messy the house is or the fact that he didn't eat the meal that you prepared, he ordered pizza instead and you get frustrated? Well, instead, can you walk in and notice what he did well, how the kids are having fun, how he spent time with them? And going back to my example of church, you know, what's more important, that my husband's committed to going with me and our kids to church or the fact that we're 15 minutes late? And what actually is better for my marriage, being at church on time or having a harmonious relationship with my husband?

And the Lord really convicted me in the power of my words and whether I'm going to call out that hero or I'm going to discourage him from becoming that. Then when we look at the fact that he needs my help and this gives me power, it's the idea that you have all these things to offer your husband and the Lord was beginning to ask me, will you compete with your husband or will you complete him? And one of the ways that this played out in my marriage is that my profession and my area of study is that I'm a clinical psychologist and I study marriage and family. So I know a lot about marriage and parenting. And so I worked for about four years at Focus on the Family where my job was to interview marriage and parenting experts. And so I got to interview the best of the best and I would come home with all this advice to give to my husband to tell him how he could be a better husband and a better father and how we could be better parents and how we could work on our marriage and it became exasperating.

It became to the point where I was correcting my husband about everything with my helpful voice, which really wasn't helpful at all. And my husband began to see that as, again, Julie's trying to compete with me. She thinks that she knows everything. She thinks that she's got it all right. Like she doesn't ever give me a voice in any of these things. And the Lord really had to humble my heart and help me to realize that even though I'm the marriage and family expert, my husband actually has pieces of this that I need and that my kids need.

So let me give you an example of this. When we were making a big family move about maybe 12 years ago, we were moving from Ohio to Colorado, our kids were really little and a few of them were struggling with us. Our oldest son, Michael, was about 9 or 10 and he was having a really hard time with this move. And so he was in his bedroom and he was crying. He was crying about moving. And me, the psychologist, I'm like, I'll go in and help him. So I went in to help Michael and I'm processing his feelings with him and I'm validating, you tell me how you feel, Michael, and yeah, that's understandable. And so I was in there for about 15 minutes and then I started crying. And so my husband here is like, Michael crying, me crying. And it's like it's just getting worse, it's a train wreck of processing. And so my husband comes in and he's the lighthearted one and he kicks me out and he's like, get out of here, you're not helping.

And so then within five minutes he had Michael laughing and excited about the journey ahead. And what I realized is that my kids don't need two moms, they need a mom and a dad. And so many times as moms and as women we feel like we have the answers and we feel like we have this help to give. And we do have help to give, but we have to be really careful in how we do that and how often we do that. And the Lord has been teaching me that there are times where I just need to be quiet.

And the reason my husband may not step into leadership is because I'm not giving him room to with all of my help. Now yes, there is a time to step up and there's a time to speak. There's even times to confront. But are we doing that wisely and prayerfully? The time to confront is not when your husband has loaded the dishwasher wrong. There are times where we need to just keep our mouths shut and be prayerful about God.

When and how do you want me to use this power that you've given me with my husband to address the issues that really matter? And then we've got this issue about sex. Do you know that sex has a lot of power in a man's life?

We know that in culture. Everybody's after using sex in a way that's powerful, but it's not just in culture. If you look at the scripture, the most godly man that ever lived, David. The strongest man that ever lived, Samson.

The wisest man that ever lived, Solomon. They all fell because of the power of sex. And we think about sex in a way where the power is bad because it causes people temptation.

It causes them to fall. But you know, God has made sex to be a powerful thing in a man's life for a positive reason. Because it gives you power in your relationship with him. Good power.

Now I want to be really careful about how I say this. I remember when I was a young wife, I went to a marriage event and we had a woman's session. And the woman was talking about sex. And she looked at 1 Corinthians chapter 7, which is the wifely duty passage if you don't recognize that. But she was talking about the power that sex has in our husband's life. And her message was, if you don't use that power, if you don't give your man sex, then somebody else is going to use that power. And I took that as a young wife very seriously. And there was a good message there, but it was not presented wholeheartedly in a way that was helpful.

And here's why. First of all, it made me fearful. It made me fearful that if I don't meet my husband's sexual needs, then somebody else will. And if he looks at pornography or he cheats on me, it must be my fault.

That's not true. I'm not accountable for my husband's sexual choices. I'm accountable for how I use my power in our relationship.

There's a big difference between the two. The second problem with it was that I began to approach my husband and the sexual relationship and my marriage totally just wanting to meet his needs. And I think this happens in a lot of marriages. You have one person who has really outspoken about their sexual needs and another person who doesn't really think about it or doesn't really feel a lot of sexual needs.

And the whole relationship revolves around getting that person's needs met. And this is what I did in my marriage. And so for about 10 or 15 years of my marriage, sex was all about my husband needs it, I better give it. There was no fun in it for me. Actually, it was physically painful for me.

And I was like, well, I guess this is my lot in life. And the more I read in Scripture about sexual intimacy, the more I realized that that is not the completion of what God's design was meant to be. That even though they were buried way down deep inside of me, I had sexual needs too. And actually, 1 Corinthians 7, before it ever talks about a woman's obligation to meet her husband's sexual needs, it says a husband is obligated to meet his wife's sexual needs. Even if he doesn't know how to, that he has to study her and awaken her sexually.

And so when we talk about the power of sex, here's what I want you to hear. It's not just meet your husband's sexual needs, give him more sex, I don't want you to hear that. It's an invitation on the journey to share this most important part of his life.

Because your husband's sexual needs is not just about what you do physically. It's about this area of his life that can become very secretive. It can be filled with temptation, it can be filled with shame, it can be filled with longing, it can contain areas of his life where he's afraid of intimacy. And I've learned over 25 years to move past just focusing on what is the immediate need of my husband to focusing on what does it look like to share, truly share this part of his life with him. To talk about it, to pray about it, to journey together, to learn together. And there's far more power in that than just the message that your husband has a physical need.

Because the physical need is only a piece of it. And women, I believe that these three needs give us great power by God's design. And I'm jealous for that power in my husband's life. I want to be the number one person that says, you're my hero, I believe in you. I want to be the number one person that says, I'm on your team, all that I have is yours, I want to help you.

I want to be the number one person, the only person in his life that's on that journey with him in terms of what sexuality looks like. But the problem is I don't always use that power well. Sometimes in marriage we ignore our power because of fear or because of insecurity, we don't step into it. I think even sometimes misunderstanding biblical teaching, we don't think that a godly woman should be powerful. But actually I think the scripture says God created us as powerful. It's not the fact that we are or we're not, it's what are we doing with it? Are we using our power to build or to tear down? And so some women at times we ignore our power but I think more often we tend to abuse our power. We use it in a way that tears down intimacy. And there are a couple of different ways we do this.

The first way we do this is what I call the bulldozer. And the bulldozer just, you know you're powerful, you know you're a powerful woman. And you're like, I've got an opinion, my opinion's better, get out of my way. And your husband feels that, your husband feels that you always know what's right. You don't trust him and so you're just gonna make decisions. And ladies we do this out of fear. You know when the scripture talks about submitting to our husbands, it says don't give way to fear.

And when I'm fearful I wanna be a bulldozer. If you're a bulldozer you tend to treat your husband almost like he's one of your children. Maybe you joke about it, you tell him what to do just like you would with one of your children.

Kind of looks like this. Your husband will always be your biggest and only child that requires the most adult supervision. You know this is the way that our culture talks about men. If we think of them as children why would they step into becoming heroes? And if you have a tendency to be a bulldozer because that's all you know or because you've just been captured by fear. Here's the thing, your husband cannot grow in that environment.

If he's weak he'll stay weak and if he's strong he'll go somewhere where his strength is gonna be appreciated. But that's not the only way we can abuse our power. Instead of a bulldozer I'm a stealth bomber. And a stealth bomber is the manipulator. The stealth bomber zooms in under the radar, no one knows they're there, drops the payload, zooms out and the husband's like, what just happened? Why am I doing dishes?

How did that happen? And I'm a good manipulator because I'm a clinical psychologist. You know I'll be like, you want to do dishes, I want to do dishes. And there's all kinds of ways that I've learned to manipulate my husband. You know sometimes it's using skills of psychology, sometimes it's turning on the tears just at the right time. But often what it is, yeah you can make that decision. I'm not gonna tell you not to but under the, between the lines, just wait and see what happens. Just wait and see how I react.

We withhold and this is the worst of it. I told you so. That's because you didn't listen to me, that's manipulating. You know my husband has learned that he's married to a manipulator. And he's heard me speak on this so he got my tricks. And so one time we're having a conversation, I'm working some of my magic and he goes, wait a minute. Manipulator shields activated, go ahead. He calls me, he calls them my Jedi mind tricks, he's like they're not working on me. But the manipulator does the same thing the bulldozer does but just does it more subtly. Because when I manipulate I'm really saying I don't trust you.

When I manipulate I'm really saying I'm gonna punish you if you don't lead the way I think you should. It's not trusting. Now there's a third way we abuse our power and I call this kryptonite. He knows Superman.

As strong as he is, if kryptonite's in the room he shrinks, right? Kryptonite is when we humiliate our husbands. It's that one thing you say in front of friends or even when you're alone that you know is his soft spot. The one thing that embarrasses him. And you know your man well enough to know what that is. It might be about how much he earns, it might be about his sexuality. It might be bringing up a failure from his past. And we can be building our husbands, building our husbands but sometimes just that one thing we do that humiliates, he just shrinks like all of his strength is just gone. Have you done that?

I've done that. And I'm fortunate enough to be married to a husband who will tell me right away when I do it so I don't do it again. You see, God has given us power not to ignore it, not to abuse it but to use it wisely. One of my life verses is Proverbs 14 one.

It says, the wise woman builds her house but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down. And ladies, I have been guilty of tearing down my husband more times than I wish to count. Not because I wanted to but because I wasn't submitting my power to the Lord and using it wisely. And I've been on a journey with the Lord now for 25 years of what does it look like to wisely use my power in a way that will build intimacy, that will build my husband. Now, I wrote the book on this 20 years ago and for the last 20 years I can't say I followed that advice all the time. There are times I needed to go back and read my own book and I read it and I'm like, I wrote this? I don't do this.

Like, I get convicted. But the Lord, every time I struggle in my marriage or I'm faced with a difficult situation, he brings me back to these principles and this question of what are you doing with your power? I can't change my husband. I can't change his heart but I have great influence with him. And what am I doing with that influence? And there are so many ways that I've seen God be faithful in helping our marriage and building intimacy because of these principles.

But that's not the only reason I do it. God does not promise us that if we use our power wisely that we will have a great marriage. I know some of you in this room and in Studio B are in marriages that are really difficult. And I can't promise you that your husband is going to dramatically change in a month.

He's going to be a different guy. I think these principles will help. But here's what I can promise you and the promise that I cling to. This is not about a perfect marriage. It's about being faithful to the Lord. You see our marriages are all going to end someday.

They're not eternal. And one day you and I are going to stand before the Lord and we're not going to give account for our husbands. And we're not even going to give account for our marriages. But we will give account for what we've done with what God has given me. I will give account for whether or not I've been faithful to the Lord.

And that's what I want to focus on. Because what the Lord promises is that His eyes search to and fro throughout the earth to look for a heart that is fully committed to Him that He might support it. When I lived in Colorado I remember going to a national park so beautiful there and being on this really high peak. And looking over this valley of like thousands and thousands of aspen trees.

And it was just turning fall so almost all the trees were green and there were maybe one, two, three, four, five trees among thousands that had turned bright yellow. As I looked I could point out the bright yellow ones immediately and I thought that's maybe a visual of what it means when the Lord looks to and fro throughout the earth looking for one heart that is fully committed to Him that He might support it. And the promise my friends is that if you will fully commit your heart to being faithful with the power that God has given you, He will support you. Well, we've been listening to Dr. Julie Slattery talking about the power a wife has for building intimacy in her marriage. And I have to imagine some wives were thinking, okay, I can recognize some areas where I can do a little better.

Oh, yes. It's so convicting, like, oh, Julie, why did you have to go there? But I love how Julie always takes us back to the Lord Jesus and the power that we have through Him and maybe our circumstances aren't changing overnight.

And they may not change, but we still can walk with Him, keep our eyes on Jesus, and He gives us hope in every day. And I would say, I'm sure Bob and I are thinking, I hope every wife listens to this message. How can I send this to a wife I know, right? But I do know I'm sitting beside my wife and she respects me. And it's the most powerful, inspiring thing in my life. She's my best friend.

She's my companion. I won't even talk about the third area, but the intimacy as well. I mean, those three are core in a man's heart. And when his wife is beside him and speaking and living those into his life, it brings a man alive. It really does.

It makes a man a better man. And I would hope our listeners would go to our website, familylifetoday.com. Julie's message is about an hour long. We just played a portion of it today, but you can download the entire message and pass it on to others. In fact, I should just mention here, Family Life Today and many of the messages you hear on Family Life Today are available on our website for free download. You can also listen to this program regularly on the Family Life mobile app, which is brand new.

You can download that for free from your app store on your mobile device. All of the content we have available, articles, podcasts, links to audio and video, that's all available to you at no cost, because Family Life is committed to providing practical, biblical help and hope for your marriage and your family. And because there are listeners like you who have said, we want to help make this available for moms and dads and husbands and wives to benefit from. So thanks to those of you who support the program. All of these resources are available for free at familylifetoday.com, including the complete version of Dr. Julie Slattery's message that we heard a portion of today. Download it online again at familylifetoday.com. Now, I've mentioned this earlier this week, but we have a small group starting next Thursday night.

It's going to go three weeks. This is for married couples. We're going to be talking about what 1 Corinthians 13 has to say about what real love looks like in a marriage relationship. And we want to invite you to join the live Family Life Love Like You Mean It small group. It's going to start at seven o'clock Central Time, and you can get all the information and sign up to be part of the small group when you go to our website familylifetoday.com. Again, go to the website, look for more information, and plan to join us for about an hour next Thursday night and for two Thursdays after that. Three weeks in a row, the Love Like You Mean It marriage small group on Facebook Live.

Again, all the details are available at familylifetoday.com. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday when we're going to talk about how challenging and disorienting it can be when someone loses a job unexpectedly.

A lot of people have had to go through this this year. Dale Kreinkamp and his wife Deb are going to join us to talk about how we walk through that challenging season. Hope you can tune in 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 Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back Monday 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.