Hi, this is Jim Daly. A Merry Christmas to you and your family. I'm so grateful you've joined us today, and it's my hope you will listen every day because we're here to offer you Bible-based practical help for your marriage, your parenting, and your daily walk with Christ. Today, I'm inviting you to join us in ministry. If you've benefited from any of our programs or resources, can you help pay it forward by donating to Focus on the Family now before the end of the year?
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Give today by calling 800AFamily or go to focusonthefamily.com/slash family. 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.
That's Anne Wilson describing some of the challenges she faced with her husband Dave and how they worked through their issues with grace and humility. It's a powerful conversation today with the Wilsons and part of our best of 2025 collection of programs this year, and we're thrilled to share it with you again today. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. We reviewed part one of the conversation with Dave and Ann last time, and I would describe it as a little touchy when it comes to marital issues and how we interact with our spouse. You know, raising these things can be a little delicate, and we don't always do it well, even in the Christian community.
I think Ann really captured some of the angst men and women feel in her book, How to Speak Life to Your Husband When All You Want to Do Is Yell at Him. Admit, that's a pretty funny title. All the wives are going, That's exactly how I feel. And it may be true for you today.
Now, we're not trying to put any guilt or shame on wives because husbands can get frustrated too. It works both ways. And the great message from Ann and Dave about seeking God's best for your marriage certainly applies to both spouses.
So, if you missed the program last time, get the Focus on the Family app so you can review it or go to the website. This is really good stuff that can transform your relationship in amazing ways. Ways. And as we mentioned last time, the Wilsons are speakers and authors and show hosts for Family Life Today. And we'll have more details about them and about Ann's book, How to Speak Life to Your Husband, in the show notes.
And let's continue on with the conversation. It's a best of 2025 episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
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 it written 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'd have 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 stuff 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 to this gym, it's a dance to talk about this because. It's almost 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 go, 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: 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? Yes. 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 had the Yurkoviches 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.
I played ball with her brothers.
So, yeah, very. I think I was in the third grade, and I remember saying, 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. 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 to me. Looking past you. Looking, 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? 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 Down, 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 they're gonna, 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 world 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. Yeah, 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. That's how we both Well, year one.
How did you get to the next one? 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 Cornhuskers, 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 when I come home and tell her, she goes, I don't even like you.
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 college remember. 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 did. Ours did.
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 we can 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. 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 got to 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 say, basically what happens is because all of us have things that have happened. 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 funny?
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. But 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, Anne has a section about neural pathways.
Well, we're going to talk about Helen Fisher. Yeah.
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 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 realize, 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.
Well, 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 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 a 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. Happy. to see the good in me and to see the great in me. And 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, like 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 to you. 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. 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 awareness. I'm asking God to 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. It 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 going to be great. Watch this. And I ran in there, and the boys. I mean, I tear up now thinking those, you know, those days are gone. That's really good.
You seized it. 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 it 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 aren't. Not always. Come on. Give me a little flip. 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.
Um But And that's how we concluded our Best of 2025 conversation with Ann and Dave Wilson talking about Ann's book, How to Speak Life to Your Husband When All You Want to Do Is Yell at Him. And we'd be happy to send a copy of that to you when you make a gift of any amount to focus on the family today. That's our way of saying thank you for helping us rescue and strengthen marriages. And if you'd like more inspirational faith-building programs like this one, let me urge you to check out our entire Best of 2025 audio collection. John, this audio collection is amazing.
We have top-notch guests like Lee Strobel talking about the supernatural, Dr. Meg Meeker on raising healthy and happy sons, Pam Farrell and John Burke on imagining what heaven will be like, and so much more. 20 programs in all, and the entire collection is free. Yeah, you'll find it and an opportunity to donate and get Ann's book and more at our website, and the links are in the show notes. And as we look forward to Christmas and spending time with family, And friends, we need to be mindful of those who are struggling right now.
Couples who are in crisis or parents who feel disconnected from their children, pregnant women and girls who may be considering an abortion, and many others who are lonely and isolated at this time of year. That's our mission here at Focus on the Family, delivering hope and joy to people who need the good news message of the gospel, especially now at the end of the year. For months now, we've been gearing up for the hundreds of thousands of people who will contact us in 2026. We need your help to be ready. Let's work together to rescue marriages, equip parents, and save pre-born babies.
Please consider a year in gift to Focus on the Family, and let's see what God will do to transform those families. And again, you can donate to when you call 800, the letter A in the word family, or click the link in the show notes. And Jim, you mentioned Lee Stroubble. We'll hear from him tomorrow as he shares some pretty amazing stories about the supernatural. And this theologian pulled out his handkerchief and started to dab his eyes.
He says, I miss that. I miss being in that culture where there was an expectation of the supernatural. I believe an angel caught him. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.
Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of truth. As we celebrate his birth this Christmas, I hope you'll be inspired to share God's truth with grace and love. Become better equipped by listening to my podcast, Refocus with Jim Daly from Focus on the Family. Every episode, I talk to fascinating guests about important cultural issues and how we can reach people for Christ and share his joy. Listen at refocus with JimDaily.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
