I think the greatest thing that I did. Is that I got on my knees and said, God. I can't do this. Evidently, I've been failing at how I'm trying to love Dave. I thought I was doing a good job, but I'm not.
And so, God, I give you my life again. I just re-surrender all of myself to you. It's Romans 12, 1. You know, to lay your life down is a living sacrifice.
Well, that's Ann Wilson describing some of the challenges of marriage and working through issues with your spouse and how to reconnect in positive, healthy ways. Ann and her husband, Dave, are our guest today on Focus on the Family, and we're glad to have you along. I'm John Fuller. John, we had a really insightful conversation, probably one of those ones I classify as a little touchy when it comes to marital issues and how to make this thing we call marriage the best it can be, especially for those of us who are Christians under the guidance of the Lord and the Word of God. That's what we want, right?
But sometimes culture seeps into us and our attitudes grow a little harder to deal with. And Ann's written this wonderful book. And, you know, again, I think wives will feel pointed out. That's not the goal here, but her book that she wrote is called How to Speak Life to Your Husband When All You Want to Do Is Yell at Him.
Now, Do any men feel you've ever lived that moment with your wife?
Okay. Sure have. And that's okay. And we did, I think, a really good job last time talking about both sides of that: the issue, what is driving the wife to make these corrections. And Ann did a beautiful job even talking about the metaphor of pruning a bush and how we try to prune our husbands into behavior that they like.
I thought it was wonderful. And if you missed last time, get a hold of us. You can do that at the website or get the app, and you get access to all the podcasts and broadcasts. But just a really good discussion about how to change your marriage from stagnation to thriving. Yeah, yeah, there's so much good stuff here, and we're glad to have the Wilsons back.
They're authors and speakers and show hosts for Family Life Today. And as you said, Jim, the book is How to Speak Life to Your Husband. We have copies of that here at the ministry, and the link is in the show notes. And Dave, welcome back to Focus on the Family. It's good to be here.
Yeah, it's good to be here. It's great to be here. Yeah, it's fun to have you here in the studios. You're in Orlando, which is always nice. Nice as well.
We'll come see you in January, February. You need to come. We are totally having you both. We would love it. I think that'd be so fun.
But again, so good. And for those listening, we're going to pick up. And if you're feeling like you are not up to speed on what we're talking about, you got to go back, like I said, and listen and get in tune because these two parts will fit together very succinctly. And okay, this is a funny way to start this. Why did you write this book about your husband, Dave?
And I mean, what was the impetus really at the core? I think the impetus was I thought our marriage was struggling. And I thought he was the problem. And so, and I'm the same thing. It's not me, it's her.
And I really thought if you'd have asked me, How could your marriage be great? Like, if God would get a hold of Dave, we could be amazing. That's so prideful because it takes two. But what happened was, I started talking about. This journey of wanting to help Dave, and I thought I could help him by using my words to motivate him.
But they weren't motivating him, they were critiquing him. And the book is like a memoir. And honestly, you guys, we've been traveling, speaking to marriages. Husbands, wives for 35 years. And this is a thing we experience as women, and our heart isn't like, oh, I married a horrible husband.
Our heart is, I know this guy, at least at one point, was really great, and I think I can help him be better. And so I think my goal is for women to realize They have incredible power, and a lot of that power comes from our words, our motivation. I mean, who doesn't love? Maybe you don't. Proverbs 18, 21.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue. And we've seen that. And I think what has happened is I've realized my motivation wasn't to change Dave. My motivation was to have a better marriage. I want a great marriage.
But I realized what happened is the more I spoke life to Dave and our three sons, they started to change. And that's not the motivation, but they started to change.
Well, and as you said last time, you said that it wasn't working, the critiquing, the pruning of the bush, like you were getting the side. I've tried for years. Right. Yeah.
So, I mean, even that is a good revelation. It's healthy to be able to say, okay, you know, why am I going to keep banging my head up against the wall? Let's try something else. But it does take humility.
Now, here's the tender part of this: people listening, women listening is, Jim, it's a dance to talk about this because it's almost, you know, non-touchable to question a wife about how she's treating her husband. And I don't want it to sound defensive, and it's not always the wife's fault. It's both ways. All those things. Because women do hear that.
I mean, when they hear this program, they're like, oh, you're going to put this all on me now? That's why we have a bad sex life. That's why we have a bad this. That's why we have, that's not what we're saying here. And it's just, man, it's just back to the Proverbs, who doesn't want that?
You know, that should be the goal. You know, when we do our hope-restored marriage intensives, that's one of the things they start with with, you loved each other at one time.
Now you're here with divorce papers. How can we find a path back to you loving each other again? Don't we want that? Why do we want chaos and strife?
So that's the goal of what we're talking about today. And in your book, How to Speak Life to Your Husband, you describe triggers, which is so good. This is the big thing, I think, in marriage. When we have the Yerkoviches on, it's all about triggers, right? Things you learned in your childhood that really do become that button.
And us spouses are really good at pushing those buttons. We don't even know where all that construction zone is in your childhood, but somehow we can go right to that pothole. And just boop, hit it. For you, it was being ignored at the dinner table. Isn't that crazy?
Tell us about that. Yeah, and I wish somebody would have helped me and taught me this and just kind of shared some of if you have an issue that keeps cycling back in your marriage, I feel like it's God saying, I want you to look at this. Look at this. Look at this. And our issue was always: he's not here for me.
He doesn't notice me. He doesn't see me. He doesn't appreciate me. He's gone. He's out of it.
And so, as I started to dig through counseling, through the Holy Spirit, through doing some things. I realize as I go back, and some people are like, oh, we have to go back into our, you know, our old wounds in the past. But our wounds in the past, if we don't heal them, we don't have to stay in the past, but God wants us to heal them so that we can get out of the rut. And so, Like at the dinner table, I'm the youngest of four. My family's very athletic.
Coaches, they were my coaches. Yeah.
And I played ball with her brothers.
So, yeah, very. And I think I was in the third grade, and I remember saying, like, hey guys, this is what happened today on the playground. And my dad stopped me. And my dad was a good guy. We didn't grow up in the church, but he said, Ann, now's not your time.
Your brother is a senior in high school, and it's his time. And so we're going to hear what he has to say. Wow. And I I'm kind of a spunky person. I'm like, Well, when's my time?
They're all going to be gone when it's my time, and nobody will be at the table but you and mom, and that's kind of boring. I want to say what I want to say. And he just said, It's not time. But that was very typical of my life. My parents, they were busy, and I get it now, but they were busy, they didn't know what I was doing.
And so I got married thinking, This guy, He will see me. He will be there for me. He will help meet all those needs that I didn't get growing up. I never knew that, never thought that. And so, what am I thinking?
We get married. At first, he's just like that, but then he's out conquering the world. And so, when he comes back, looking past you, not even seeing me. Yeah.
Yeah.
And again, I didn't even know it. Right. I'm thinking I'm being a good provider. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And I'm doing ministry.
So, how do you complain about, you know, my job is God? And what's your challenge? You know? And so we're six months in, and she literally yells at me in a car as we're driving to Nebraska. Our first job was to be the chaplain for the Nebraska Cornhuskers with Athletes in Action.
And she says, marrying you is the biggest mistake of my life. Ooh. She didn't say a mistake. The biggest mistake. And I yelled back, you're right.
What were you thinking? And again, Jim and John, we did not know in that moment all this luggage that we brought was starting to show itself. We had no idea. We thought we're great. I mean, my family's two alcoholics, adultery, divorce, but I'm good.
I'm new in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5, the old is gone, the new has come. And I believe that is all true. But if you don't process your family of origin wounds, you're bringing them. And we brought them because I had never processed them.
And again, I'm not saying I'm not new in Christ. I am new in Christ. That is in the past. The old has passed away. But we brought it in.
And so I'm trying to show my dad. I'm worth something. And I'm not going to start a church. It's going to be a mega church. I'm not going to be, you know, it's just like I'm on this drive, not even realizing I'm leaving her in the past.
And she's brought in that that you just heard. Nobody saw me.
Now her husband's not seeing me. Biggest mistake of my life was marrying you. Because she felt that coming out. That's where we were. We almost didn't make it to year one.
You know, so here we are, year 45. You have to process that stuff, and we have. And again, not in a week or a month, but over a year, sitting down with a third-party counselor who can help us see that, process that, and then heal through that. And I tell you what, it actually has made our marriage much better than it would have been, but it was hard work.
Well, vulnerability does that.
Some of the strongest marriages I know is where they've suffered through infidelity. But now you're filleted. You're wide open. Yes. Your spouse knows you better than you have ever been known.
Exactly. And those that can survive that tend to have really strong marriages. Let me ask you, though, Dave, because someone's got to be asking this question in the audience: what did you say when she said that? I mean, that's a dagger. Which one?
In the car when she said, my biggest mistake was marrying you. What were the words out of your mouth next? My exact response. Again, we're Six months in. I'm 22.
She's 19. I yelled back. And we've been fighting for months. We've only been married six months, and half of it we're fighting. And I said, You're right.
We should annul this thing when we get to Lincoln. Mm.
Well, year one. How did you get to that? You know what happened? This is so crazy because we go to Lincoln and we both start working with the college teams on the campus.
So, Dave. Christian leadership. Yes. We're following Jesus. I meet this defensive back for the Corn Huskers, and yeah, I'm just brand new there.
I don't know what I'm doing. And he says to me, he goes, Hey, you don't know this because you're new, but a lot of us on the football team are married. I go, really? He goes, Yeah, would you and Ann do a marriage Bible study for us? And I come home and tell her, she goes, I don't even like each other.
Wait, we don't even like each other. What would we say? And we pulled out that old family life manual that we went to a conference and we started teaching that. Wow. And it's amazing how.
Like, if you don't have a game plan for your marriage or even know the intention behind it, why God created marriage, as we taught it, we started learning it. And we realized there is an enemy to our marriage. And it's not your spouse. Oh, yeah. And you know this.
What we discovered was, again, I don't know if anybody's marriage on football team got better. But ours. Ours did. You know, and I think there's a principle there. When you try to save your marriage, often it doesn't work.
But when you give your marriage away to help others, Jesus said, you want to find your life, lose it for my sake. That's sort of what happened. We started pouring into others, thinking more about how can we help them. And every week we're teaching this stuff from weekend to remember.
Now we're speakers for that conference for 30 plus years. And we started to apply it in our home. And again, it wasn't magical, but over years, our marriage got better. Yeah.
No, that's a really interesting summary of those early days. I do want to go back because, again, you're so good with metaphors in this. Book, Anne. But the idea of the dog cage, you would bring a dog cage out on stage. Tell us how that related to this very issue.
You gotta see this when she does it.
Well, I think what happens is so many of us are victims of our past, and we stay these victims. And I relate it to a dog cage. And so I bring this cage on to the stage. And I said, basically, what happens is because all of us have things that have happened. And every single listener, every single person, every single viewer has had things happen where it beats down your identity and your identity in Christ.
And so we're in these cages and we're trapped. By our thoughts, our thoughts about our husbands, our marriages, our past wounds, our past trauma. And Jesus has opened the door. But Satan wants to keep us and our marriages in the cage, locked in, thinking there's never a way out. And there is.
Wow, that is powerful. Yeah.
And, you know, some people struggle with, you know, our origin thing and psychology just generally. But these things, they are indicators of what God has created, in my opinion. When you look at psychology, it's just people that are trying to be educated about how the brain works. God knows how the brain works because he created the brain. He created the brain chemistry.
He created it all. Isn't it fascinating?
So when they're discovering these things, this is not some kind of odd thing. This is explaining the way God has wired us with our pains and sorrows from our past and how do we get out of the cage. And it's a great use of scripture that you just had there that he sets us free. Isn't it amazing when you see people in chaos? Yes.
You know, because they get comfortable there. Yeah.
They get comfortable with the arguments. They get comfortable with the disorder. And you're just going, wow, there is a much better way to go. And that's what we're talking about. That's what we talk about as Christians to being set free in Christ.
Yeah, and maybe you saw in the book, Ann has a section about neural pathways.
Well, we're going to talk about Helen Fisher.
So fascinating. Let's talk about Helen Fisher, Dr. Helen Fisher, the researcher. Explain that. She's so interesting because she does a lot of brain science, but she talks about a person's way of being.
And so your way of being, like, you may not, you may be in a marriage, either the husband or the wife, and maybe you don't yell. But you hold it inside and and I'm telling you I Dave can come in the door and I don't say one word to him. But he knows exactly what I'm feeling. It's true, especially if you've been married a little bit, like you're giving off this vibe. I've had women say, I don't, yeah.
I don't even say anything negative. And I say, what do you think he thinks you're feeling? Yeah.
He knows, or she knows, because she was saying that is just like it's really something that we give off. And so I think it's important. She talks about too: just our neurological pathways. If you get in a rut neurologically, you're always thinking the negative. For instance, for Dave and I, I could be, I remember one time folding the clothes, thinking, you know, he's not here again.
He's off on some other thing. I'm not important.
So that's my rut. That's where I go every time. All the negative that Dave isn't doing, he's not performing, he's not here, he's not leading spiritually. I could go on and on. And I felt like God stopped me for a second and said, What would happen instead of complaining about him, you would pray for him.
That was a new thought. And so I realized if I'm going to transform my mind, when the scripture says, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed, that word transformed in the Greek is actually the word, like it's a metamorphosis. It's a total change. And so I realized, like, it's almost that heart of gratitude that you listen and you hear about and you study. Instead of going to the negative, I'm going to now start thinking the positives.
Yeah.
Well, what's what are the good things that he's done? And I was walking with my best friend, Michelle. We were talking about this, and she was saying, like, Rob's always gone. He's never here. He travels for his job.
He doesn't make it to the soccer games. And so she knew that I had been working on this. And she's not great with her words. And I remember asking her, why can't you give good words to Rob? And she goes, because he doesn't need them.
And everybody else gives them to him. But she heard somebody talk about journaling good words. And so you're trying to transform your thoughts, your mind. And so she starts this journal because she starts saying, God, again, show me the good things he's doing. Show me the great things that he's doing for our family.
So she starts getting a journal. You guys, and there's such easy things. Hey, thanks for putting the Christmas tree lights up outside or any Christmas lights outside. I know you hate it. I know it's cold in Michigan, but you do it anyway.
Thanks. Hey, I know you couldn't get to the soccer game till the last period, but you made it. Thank you for doing that.
So that's all. She fills this book. It's a really cool journal. She fills it up for a year. Doesn't fill it, but these little things.
Gives it to him on his birthday. He sits in the chair, he opens it, and he cries the entire Time. Reads every one. Every single word. This is our best friends.
Oh, he's my best friend. And I remember saying, Why did you cry? And he said, Because I feel like I'm constantly failing. I feel like I'm never measuring up. I'm feeling like I'm not the dad I should be, not the husband I should be.
And she knows it. She sees me all the time, and she knows it, but she's chosen and. To see the good in me and to see the great in me. And I said, What's it make you feel? He said, I want to be that guy.
I want to be better. I want to, it motivates me to be the man that God wants me to be. And now, imagine if she would have written a book of all the critiques. The referee. Yeah.
Being the referee. Foul, penalty. Yeah, I didn't realize it made Dave want to run away.
Well, it's interesting. Whenever we tell that story on stage, I look out in the audience and almost every guy's crying. Women are like. Really? Why do you think?
And they're just, I mean, I'm tender when I hear it. I'm like, that is speaking life to your man. And again, we're not saying you don't speak truth. Truth needs to be told soon. But what I try to do in the book, the only reason I'm in the book is at the end of each chapter, all I try to do for wives is say, hey, ladies.
Here's how we think. Here's how your man thinks. And I think the guys are like, read what Dave said. You know, it's interesting. We have spent a lot of time learning how women think.
Yeah.
You're right. We have as a culture. Yeah.
But I don't think we have quite the amplitude or amplification of how do men think? Because I don't know because they never talk. You know, something like that. Exactly. Before we get off, Dr.
Helen Fisher, though, I wanted to mention in the book you talked about where she took these madly in love couples. What was the outcome of those, measuring those couples? That was fascinating because she's looking at couples that had been married 20 years or more, and both of them said, we would say that we are madly in love after 20 years.
So what's the common denominator? That's what she was looking at. She's not looking at the negative. She's looking at the positive. And the common denominator in all of these couples is they had positive illusion.
Which is fascinating to me. Not the illusion. Not illusion. Yes. They saw their spouse better than their spouse actually saw themselves.
To me, this is what I've said. This is embarrassing. I would have said, well, they're totally in denial. They're not facing reality. They're not even being real or honest.
No. They, because they've been thinking of the positive, they see their spouse as being better than they are and better than what their spouse would say they are. When I first read that, I was like, wait, how do you do that? How do you see the good? And all I add at this point, and I do this in the book, is she does that.
She started doing that. I think you're better at that than I am. No, I'm just saying, again, you heard our story even yesterday where we were, and as she started to believe in me and affirm me, and again, it wasn't every day, and there's still hard things she's saying, but she's starting to say, You're a good man, you're a good husband, you're a good spiritual leader. I'm like, No, I'm not. You've never said this.
And it kept coming. And I felt like she was saying, You're this man way up here. And I'm feeling like, no, I'm not. And here's what happened. And I think this happens for every man.
I actually think this happens for women, vice versa. Is you say they're this and they feel like they're not, they rise up to become what you say they are, that they aren't yet, but they become that. And I think this is the way God wired us: like, speak life, and they will become a better man, a better woman. Here was our biggest conflict probably in our marriage. I had this vision, expectation of what Dave should do spiritually to lead our family.
You know what it was? It was Dennis Rainey. It should be Dennis Rainey. And so he wasn't like that. And so I had these ideas of what he should be doing to lead spiritually.
And I would let him know, or I'd put little books beside the bedside. I would even compare him. This is embarrassing. I'd say, hey, you know what? I was talking to Paula Day.
She said that Steve's reading the Bible every night to the kids. Boo! And then turn and walk away. Yes. Oh, gosh.
And I thought, oh, that'll motivate you. Here's your TV dinner. Wow. And so I'm on that.
Now I'm trying to change the way I think, that positive illusion. I'm asking God, show me the greatness. And so I'm watching Dave. This one night, he goes into the boys. He prays with them.
Little boys. I'm watching him, though. He comes out and I say. Man. I'm really jealous of you.
And he goes, What do you mean? I said, you have so much power over our sons. Like when you talk. They listen to you. They're running around and going crazy, but you have so much power, more power than I have, and I'm really jealous of that.
That's all I said, because now I'm seeing it. And I didn't say it to manipulate, I really saw that, wow. Look at him. The next night, you know, it's bedtime. I'm running up into the room, laying down.
Heck, guys, let's get into the Devo. And I didn't realize. I was so motivated. I'm like, I do. I actually do have power.
They do listen to me.
Well, and you thought we were thinking the opposite, because I would tell you the opposite. Because she was always like, why don't you lead this way, Spirit? And I'm like, I'm not like Dennis. I lead in a different way, you know? Because she would literally use the guy's name, Steve, my co-founder, pastor guy.
And it demotivated me. And when she said, you're really good at this and you have power, I'm like, and I didn't even realize it. And she did not do it to manipulate me to get me in there. But that's how we're wired. It's like, I can do this.
I'm gonna be great. Watch this. And I ran in there, and the boys. I mean, I I I tear up now thinking those those, you know, those days are gone. And let's end here.
We're right at the end. Jesus is the standard.
So when it comes to love and truth, he is the expert in expressing them because he created them. And you know, I think at times, and I I don't know if Sounds like we've all felt this way, Dave, but that expectation that we can be perfect and we're not. And for that reason alone, we're failures because we're not perfect. We're not Jesus. How do you coach wives to really get there to say, you know, cut them some grace and then make that turn?
Because we can't be. We want to be. I wish I could be perfect. Wouldn't that be awesome to be perfect? And our spouse is always going to bug us.
And they're going to do things that are saying at times, not always, I'm saying as we're married and time goes on, there are times that we're going to be bugged, let down, disappointed. That's just a part of marriage. That's a part of life. And I'm not saying that your husband's perfect and maybe he's failing in so many ways, but I just realized it wasn't working what I was doing. But the power of the gospel is we see all the flaws.
Jesus sees all the flaws in us, all of them. He knows all of it. And yet he continues to pursue us, love us, love us unconditionally. And that's the beauty of marriage. We see everything.
We know everything about each other. And yet Dave continues to love me and pursue me. And my goal is that our marriage would be a reflection of Jesus. Yeah, that is so good. And what a great book.
It's definitely a topic starter. It is. How to speak life to your husband when all you want to do is yell. And all the ladies said, amen. But it may not be effective.
So that's what we're here to talk about. And I hope you've enjoyed these last two days. I've certainly enjoyed talking with you. There's so many resources that come to mind, John. Our counseling team, Hope Restored, where we offer intensive counseling over a few days.
It has an 80% post-two-year success rate. If your marriage is really in trouble, you need Hope Restored. And of course, Anne's great book. You can get that through Focus on the Family. And when you contact us, I want to challenge you to consider a monthly pledge to the ministry.
Charitable giving is typically down during the summer months, and we're feeling that right now. And we need our friends to stand with us and let us know you support what we're doing, especially here in the leaner summer months. If you listen to the broadcast or podcast or watch on YouTube, I invite you to partner with us right now so we can continue to strengthen marriages and offer resources to hurting families. You provide the fuel that makes all this possible.
So a monthly pledge would be great or one-time gift as well. And let me say thank you in advance for your generosity. Donate today and learn more about our Hope Restored Marriage Intensives and request your copy of the book How to Speak Life to Your Husband when you call 800 the letter A and the word family. 800-232-6459 or check the show notes for the details and links. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your marriage can be redeemed even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years. No matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a hope-restored marriage-intensive. Our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best.
Call us at 1-866-875-2915.
