Join hundreds of thousands of students who will share their faith on Bring Your Bible to School Day on October 1st. This event empowers Christian students of all ages to speak God's grace and truth into the culture around them, starting with two simple steps, bringing their Bibles to school and sharing what God's Word means to them.
Sign up and be counted. Text the word BIBLE to 72000 or visit bringyourbible.org. While school may look different this year, God's Word stands forever. I love to say that more marriages might survive if people remembered that better often comes after worse. We married for better or worse.
And when we walk through those worse times together, those difficulties and challenges together, and come out the other side, and the Lord is shining brighter through us, there's no greater experience in the world than that. Well, that's Mark Merrill, and he and his wife Susan join us today on Focus on the Family. And your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us.
I'm John Fuller. Hey John, I'm so excited to have Mark and Susan with us today at Focus on the Family. They are good friends who share the same heart and passion as we do here for marriage, for parenting, and I kind of like to say they're bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. And that is our goal today, together to help strengthen you in your marriage. We're going to talk about that. These will be wonderful ideas to help you better understand your spouse, and especially if you're having some communication difficulty. This isn't the deep stuff if you're suffering through really traumatic things in your marriage.
That'll be a different program. Today it's for those of us who are kind of just feeling like I'm not on the top of my game when it comes to my marriage. For us guys that we're not concentrating on developing our relationship with our wives the way we should be. Maybe for you wives you're thinking, okay, I've maybe slacked off a bit loving my husband the way he needs to be loved. This is the program for you.
It is. And let me just tuck in and mention that we do have counselors here. If you are struggling, and we're a phone call away, 800-A-Family. Well, Mark and Susan are the founders of Family First, which is on mission to provide parenting and marriage and relational truth to help you love your family well. And they're speakers and bloggers, and they've got a companion set of books that they've put out.
One is Lists to Love By for Busy Wives, and of course the companion is Lists to Love By for Busy Husbands. Hey, welcome to both of you. Thanks for being here.
Thank you. Thank you for having us. We're grateful. Thank you for having us.
Hey, before we get going, I love this kind of day because this is the tune-up. This is where we can just talk with a light heart in many ways about what's happening and hopefully be a bit playful with it. In that regard, how did you guys meet?
How did God bring you guys together? Let's go right to it. Well, Jim, we have different stories, but I'm going to give the executive summary today.
Mine's too long. And the executive summary is we – I was actually in law school, and Susan was an undergrad at University of Florida. Susan, you were pursuing a legal guy?
Can you believe it? No, I wasn't pursuing him. A lawyer? Now, that's where the story might vary. I practiced for a while.
I'm a recovering attorney now, always recovering. But we met – actually, I remember seeing her ultimately at the sorority house, and I thought, boy, that girl is cute. She was doing this barbershop quartet number, and I just looked at her and I said, I need to know who she is. She just looks wholesome and cute and wonderful.
And so that's where it all started. But, you know, and so after we met, what really was attractive for me too, Susan, was that she was just lively. She had so much character and so much excitement. She was spontaneous and creative. And they say that before marriage, opposites attract, and after marriages, opposites attack. What was once appealing is now annoying.
And you know how many couples just went, yep, yep, yep. And one of the things that was really interesting is I had this expectation, and I thought Susan would be organized. I thought she would be disciplined, all the things that I was. And I expected her to be more like me. And so those early years in our marriage, I became somewhat critical of her because I wanted her to be more like me. And so she started to become more like me.
And guess what? I didn't like it. It was really bothering me that she was becoming more like me. And so I had to have a confrontation. And the biggest confrontation I had to have wasn't with Susan.
It was with myself. I needed to change the world. I think I needed to change our expectations for our marriage.
You know, to help the listener, you know, they're probably connecting somewhat. But give us an example of that critical spirit that you had, the control that you were exerting that was frustrating her. But you were trying to be the good wife and be the right spouse. So you were changing, as you said in the opening, you were changing who you were, Susan, to meet Mark's needs.
People can identify with that, but that created frustration, right? I can give examples early in the marriage, especially because we got married and literally a year, two weeks short of a year later, had our first child. So you went from a couple who was out there doing law and banking and this and that and going, going, going, and all of a sudden I'm a stay at home mom. And so where I was like, whoa, this is going to be so much fun and we're going to play.
And we had another one right after that. And we are playing and I'm doing manipulatives and we're creating. And it's a hot mess, a fun, hot mess. Great for me because I'm thinking and great for my girls because they are exploring and I was very much into child development and I'm a researcher. You're the super mom.
I can see it right now. We are just having so much fun and enjoying every minute. Like I did not have a struggle making that transition. I loved being a creative mom, but Mark would come home and, you know, dinner probably wouldn't be ready and I'd be so excited. Like, look what we made today. Look at this mess like we made today. And I'm like pulling him into it going, come join us.
This is so awesome. And he's more like, OK, well, this is too much chaos for me. OK, now most guys can identify that. We won't admit it.
It's politically incorrect. But did you ever come home and say, what have you been doing all day? Oh, yeah. And maybe I didn't say that with my words because I was trained by your family training and all the radio shows I listened to back in the 80s. But it was something that I thought in my mind, like, you know, I've been working so hard all day and I don't have great expectations, but I'd like some dinner and I want some organization. You know, basically everybody come greet me at the door and oh, worthy father, you are home and it just doesn't work like that. And really, I really started squashing Susan's spirit there in that fun, loving, creative, wonderful, wonderful woman.
I was snuffing it out. And so that's where I really had to come to grips with this and really seek her forgiveness and just say, Lord, just to cry out. I've been so wrong in this. You know, a lot of people, they may not have come to that realization that I'm squelching or crushing my spouse, no matter what the direction, male to female or vice versa.
How does a person begin to get that awareness? I would say for me, I finally found the words to say, when you come home or when we interact, I feel like there is a flavor of the week, an ice cream flavor of the week that I need to meet every week. You're working on me in some area and you're saying, OK, this week, can you do the laundry this way or this week when I come home?
And I am a pleaser. And what robbed my joy in our marriage and in our family was that I couldn't please in every way, every week. And that was debilitating. It was debilitating. I'm sure depressing.
Yes. And so I said to that, I have to understand what is the big win for you? What if I could just do three things for you? What would it be? And I will try to meet those three and then you have to let me, you know, just be the person.
That right there is powerful. Just the three things. Can you help me? Man, that is I'm thinking I need to do that with Jean.
What are three things I can do? What really resonated with me was not you never do this. You always do this.
I don't like when you do this. It was her expressing her feelings to me and says, here's how it makes me feel. And then she gave me this wonderful word picture, this flavor of the week, that there's always something that you're critical of.
You're never satisfied with anything. And I was looking for my happiness and my satisfaction in Susan rather than in the one who created Susan and I, the Lord. And so I had to come to a reality of, you know what, I got to really focus on what's important here and what are those two or three things that are important to me. I shared those with her and then I had to start letting go all these other things that were maybe a one, two or three and focus on the eight, nines and tens.
And so actually we do that sometimes together. We'll say, is that an eight? Is that a nine? What is that on a scale of one to ten?
How important? And so now, not everything can be a ten, but now I do throw away those other things. Like even now, the bathroom drawers are still pulled out and open and I'm organized. I want everything in its place. But you know what?
I got to let it go. It's not an eight, nine or ten. And so I'm just focused on two, three things. Mark and Susan Merrill are our guests today on Focus on the Family and the book that they have is called Lists to Love By. We've got a copy for busy wives and also a copy for busy husbands. Contact us and we can tell you more.
Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family or check the episode notes for more details. I've got to ask. So even if you have this kind of a conversation, you know, just three things and you make that mental reset, how long does it take before that becomes kind of a natural part of the rhythms of your marriage? Because there are expectations that there I said my three things and now we're all good, right?
So successful marriages do consistently what average marriages do occasionally. And that's the trick. And that's why the structure of these books are simple short chapters. So you can even peruse the table of contents and go, OK, these are the five topics that are really tough for us. So we're just going to work on those till they become a habit.
And that's the point. We're so crazy busy today. We're not taking the time to develop those habits that love each other well. Let's get into some of those lists, some of your favorites. This is from your heart. And you're speaking to those married couples, which you do at Family First so often. So let's start with your favorites.
Mark, where do you find yourself in this great list of lists? Well, I have several favorites and but one of them is three keys to unlock the door to intimacy in marriage, which is I think is such an important one. And that's what people are really they're so lonely today. And you and I have talked about that, Jim, where people are lonely and they're lost and they're longing for something more and something better in their relationship, but they don't know how to find it and where to find it. And we know one thing that if they don't have that foundation of trust, trusting the Lord, but also trusting one another in that relationship, then they are not going to be traveling down a very smooth road in the future.
There's going to be a lot of bumps and a lot of potholes. So that trust issue is the key to intimacy. Yeah. And when you talk about that loneliness, there's been lots of articles appearing in various publications around the country right now about the loneliness in marriage. Why do you think that's occurring? What's happening in marriages today generally that create that loneliness?
I think part of that and, Suzy, you might chime in on this as well, but in the List of Love by Books, it's for busy husbands and there's one also for busy wives. And I think busyness leads to neglect. And I can tell you that each and every one of us this week have spoken to somebody who said, you said, hey, how you doing, John? And they said, oh, I'm doing fine.
I'm doing fine. I'm just crazy busy. Everyone, we almost wear it as a badge of honor, but it leads to neglecting our spouse and we become the two proverbial ships that pass in the night. And then we start becoming lonely because we have no fellowship.
Just like if we're not convening and spending time in prayer and in God's word with the Father, we experience that loneliness without him in the same in a marriage relationship. But we're not really spending time and just sitting down and talking one on one. So that's one of the lists. It's talk one on one together. Yes.
Yes. And what would be another example of how to close that loneliness gap? I think loving well starts with empathy and time.
And so one of the different things we talk about in all the lists is are you sharing time together? So if I am exhausted from working and I come home and Mark has had something deeply hurtful happen to him and he starts talking about it. But I've got my to do list on. I'm not going to empathize him. I'm going to be like, OK, suck it up. You know, and that's what creates that loneliness then, because although I may with my eyes and my face pretend to listen, I'm really not entering deeply. I'm thinking, does he know what I have to do?
Now, that that's kind of amazing because it's usually the shoe on the other foot for you to have that kind of attitude. I would think a lot of married couples are experiencing this where the husband might come home. He compartmentalizes. He's not going to talk about what he's just upset. And his wife doesn't know what's happening. And he's not really thinking, I don't want to waste more time about what happened in work today. I'm just done with that. And he's just grumbling and he's just fed up with everything.
She's trying to figure out what's going on. He won't connect with me. He can't connect with me.
He's got a problem with intimacy in that way, emotional intimacy. That would be a more typical way. Do you think or do you disagree? I do. But I think times may be changing. The demands on women today are definitely unreasonable. So we're all grumpy.
I think. Yeah, exactly. I talked to so many women today who are in those child raising years and the demands of the kids schedules in school, the demands of the extracurricular activities. Many of these women are working part time or full time. And so you only have so much capacity to be empathetic and so much time. And if you then feel like you have to give that to your kids, then your husband's getting leftovers.
And that's why it's so important, Jim and John, that to when you're lonely in marriage, I believe because of that, busyness is always there. You know, stealing your time like a thief to really make sure that we're creating a I call it a stop doing list. And that how many things that we all four of us are doing that are bad things? Hopefully not.
Yeah. But it's a stop doing list of good things that aren't God's best things. I always say only do what only God would have you do. Only do what only God would have you do.
What are the most important things that he would have us do in our marriage relationship, in our life, with our kids? And then create a stop doing list of other things that may be good, but may not be the best that God has. What did that list look like?
I get it. And I try to do that. What did the list look like for you when you started to take that inventory? When I took the inventory, I saw that I was serving on some different committees.
I was serving on some additional boards and I serve on one board today. And that's it at Family First. And I took off all those other things that were wonderful things in good organizations. And even things get this at church that may not be our highest and best used instead of doing 10 things at church. Maybe there's one thing that we should be focused in on. Those are good points. And I think for women, you know, don't feel like you have to do everything for your kids.
A, even in the home. Say that again? Don't feel like you have to do everything. We really do so much today for our children. And then we also do so much that we feel everyone else wants us to do. Like your kids have to be in sports. They have to learn to play musical instruments. They have to do this.
No, they don't. Because at the end of the day, we have grown children now. We know this. But Susan, if you don't do it for that child, it's not going to get done. Right? And that's a good thing.
Now we're into the homework discussion. Susan, in fact, you had an acronym in your book, List to Love for Busy Wives. I think it was L-Y-L-A-C-C-C. Is that lilac? Love you like a chocolate chip cookie. So that's just one of the fun codes. Love you like a chocolate chip cookie. Tell me what that is. So when my kids were at Canicuck or camp or wherever they were or if I did lunchbox notes for them, they know how much I love cookies in particular. And so I would make up all these different acronyms and they know that's our code. Love you like a chocolate chip cookie. That is fun.
I love that one. Give me the things to do about developing that intimacy. In fact, you refer to it kind of flirtatious, creative ways to flirt. And so every guy's ear just opened up right now, right?
So what were you getting at? I want to hear these things. Let's do it. Well, we have five kids and when we adopted two and just went from three to five quickly because we adopted a nine and a 12 year old, my days went into overtime, big time. And that's where I hit my some things I need to say no to. But Mark came to me to talk one day and said, you know, I miss my wife. And, you know, you're the fun in our marriage.
You're the whatever. And I realized I just wasn't giving him the look anymore. I wasn't giving him the lip, the tease, the cute over the table in front of the kids going gross.
Honey, you know, not you. If you don't hear your kids saying gross, there's not enough flirtation going on. You're not flirting.
You're not flirting. Exactly. That's kind of fun, though. But what crushes that desire, particularly for wives?
And speak brutally on a suit and what takes away from the desire to do that is so important. Yeah. Exhaustion.
Yeah. Again, we're running on empty and we forget why we started this journey. We forget that I was I was madly in love with you and and what it felt like. And then at the end of this game with our kids, it's going to be you and I again. And at the end of the day, is there not the highest calling for us is to love one another. It's the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor. And I firmly believe that in God's eyes, my closest neighbor is my husband and my child, a close second, but my husband. So how I treat him first and foremost and the intimacy that we have that other couples can see in us and draws them to marriage. Yeah. You know, how many more marriages would we have if the world could see as believers how in love we are? Well, I appreciate that. You know, someone once described a woman's heart like a rose, and we contend to not water as husbands water that rose.
And over time, it just shrivels up and dies. That emotion inside them to want to be flirtatious, to want to be having the fun that they experienced when they were dating or when they were first married. So I got to turn to you, Mark, and say, what do we do as husbands that we're not watering our wives heart roses that cause them to no longer really notice who we are? And we as guys, let's face it, we want to be talked to in that way.
Yeah. You know, stroke my ego because I'm super strong or super good looking, whatever we have, whatever we think of ourselves. Jim, let me kind of take us to a deeper level on this answer because I could give you some superficial answers. But here's the bottom line is if we're to love our children well, I have got to love Susan well. Love her as Christ loved the church and gave himself for to make her holy. And we know that right as believers. But if I'm going to how do I love Susan well? Well, the only way to love Susan well is to love God well, because God is love and we first love because he loved us first.
Right. And so we are only able to love our spouse as well if we love God well. So ultimately, what I found creates the greatest intimacy, the greatest joy in our relationship that that is even just in the last year has gone deeper for us is just to be reading God's word together. She and I were reading the Psalms together in the morning. I mean, some people would say, what?
You did what? We're reading the Psalms together and the joy of the Lord and what God is doing in our lives and then praying together with one another. What greater way to create intimacy with one another than to be have that intimacy with the Father together? In the chapter, one of the list is six things you must know about your husband. And obviously there's a counter chapter to six things you must know about your wife. But we give practical things like what is their love language? What's his biggest dream? What spells romance for him? Nail those simple things down. And, you know, at the end, every chapter is only four pages. At the end, there's questions to nail those down and then go back and remember, you know, I just don't feel close right now. Let me go back to what's his love language again?
How can I create that? Do you ever encounter fear that if I do that, then I'm accountable to deliver? Do you know what I'm saying? In other words, it's interesting. Sometimes we don't want to tread into those waters because now I'm aware of what the need of my spouse is.
I would say if that's where you are, if that's what you're feeling right now, conquer it now. Because, you know, your highest calling in your marriage is to be one and you can't be one if you don't intimately know them. And so you're on a path then that I would be fearful again then for your marriage. Well, and I love that and I support that 100 percent. I just I'm thinking of folks who, you know, might shy away from wanting to do the hard work. It's easier to live superficially.
It is. But then we have a choice here. Live superficially and then you're never going through those challenges and difficulties together or you can have that deeper relationship. Where you experience this great intimacy and this great joy with one another. And I love to say that more marriages might survive if people remembered that better often comes after worse. We married for better or worse. And when we walk through those worst times together, those difficulties and challenges together and you come out the other side and the Lord is shining brighter through us.
There's no greater experience in the world than that. Well, that is so good and I appreciate that. I want to end with another little section of the book where you talked about five powerful words for your marriage.
Let me just touch on them and you come back and fill in a bit. One was respectful words for each other, affirming words toward each other, caring words, encouraging words, appreciative words. I think that is so critical and I love ending here because I think our tongue, as the scripture says, carries a lot of weight and can either kill or lift up.
And that's probably going back to the Rose analogy. We as husbands can often use our tongues to kill the spirit in our wives and vice versa. Speak to those five. Yeah, the tongue is the most powerful part of our body.
I mean, James clearly tells us about that and we really need to chain it, tame it and train it, as I like to say. And so words are extremely, extremely important and I'm a wordsmith. And so those respectful words are important, affirming words are important. I remember Truett Cathy, our friend, founder of Chick-fil-A. Truett once said to me, Mark, how do you really know if someone needs encouragement?
I was like, I don't know, Truett, how? He said, if they're breathing. Those affirming words, those words of encouragement, I think are some of the most important words that we can provide to our spouse and to our children. Because, you know what, everybody needs encouragement, especially in today's world. There's so much going on and we need to encourage one another. And encouraging words is my love language. And Mark, if you go back to the beginning of the segment, his critical spirit was exactly what the enemy was using.
To crush you. So you got to use, lift each other up. Well, what a great, great reminder. Mark and Susan, this has been really good. Let me end with this. One phrase or one word for husbands, Mark, and the same for wives, Susan.
What would you say, Mark? I'm struggling tonight. I haven't had this kind of relationship with my spouse. I've blown it. I've crushed her. I haven't watered the rose in her heart.
What can I do tonight that's going to be different around the dinner table? The word that came to my mind initially was persevere. Marriage is hard work.
It's heart work as well. And just press into God and watch him work through you and into your life. And then just love, love, love your wife well even when she's unlovable. And the same for the wives. Love your husband even when he's unlovable because that's how Christ loved us. Love them with an unfailing love, like the unfailing love we received from our Father. Wow, that is well said.
Susan, I don't know if you can add to that. Don't be overwhelmed if there are simple steps you can take to love well. And it will grow and grow and grow. Do not be discouraged. Great advice. Thanks for being here. We're grateful. And I trust as you've listened along, you were able to pick up some tips from Mark and Susan Merrill on today's episode of Focus on the Family so you can better relate to your spouse and really show them how much you love them. Now, let me mention our Focus on the Family marriage assessment. It's a great tool. It's a quick little quiz on our website that's going to highlight the areas of strength in your marriage and maybe an area or two to work on.
It takes just a few minutes, and it's really insightful. And today's broadcast is an example of the kind of ministry that we just can't do without your help. You pray and you give faithfully, and those donations allow us to help marriages like Mark and Susan's. And then they're, of course, in turn able to help other marriages. So please join us in encouraging and equipping couples to have a stronger relationship across the globe. And when you make a donation of any amount today, we'll say thanks for joining the support team by sending a copy of both editions of the books by the Merrills, List to Love By for Busy Husbands and List to Love By for Busy Wives.
Visit and get your copy of those books when you call 800, the letter A in the word family, or check the episode notes for details. Well, tomorrow you'll hear how God intervened in a dramatic way to save a young woman from a real pit of despair. And he said, can I please pray for you? And asked Jesus to take the pain out of your heart. And I was just like at that moment where I'm like, I'm either going to go die or I'm going to wait a minute and let this guy pray for me. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team here, thanks for listening today to Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. This is Jim Daly from Focus on the Family. Are you looking for practical ways to contribute to the pro-life cause? Join us for See Life 2020 on September 26th and learn how you can be a voice for the voiceless. For more information, text heartbeat to 72000.
