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Let me say the things that I need to say. That's Dr. Kevin Lehman and he joins us today on this Best of 2020 episode of Focus on the Family, giving advice on having a lifelong romance with your spouse. Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John, here's some trivia. The world record for the longest marriage ever held is by Zelmira and Herbert Fisher.
They were married 87 years until Herbert passed away when he was 105. That's pretty amazing. You're right. Several years ago, a reporter asked the Fishers, what is the most important thing to remember when marriage gets hard? I love their answer. Remember, marriage is not a contest. Don't keep score. God has put the two of you together on the same team to win. I like that. That's something good to remember for all of us and it really connects so well with what Dr. Kevin Lehman has for us today in this broadcast.
It does. And when we aired the program in January this year, we heard from so many spouses, wives especially, who felt deprived of affection from their husbands. And it felt like Kevin's advice was exactly what they needed to hear. And of course, the most important advice is to lean on Jesus to fill in the imperfect gaps we leave in our marriage.
And we all have those. And for those who aren't familiar with Dr. Lehman, he's an internationally known psychologist and speaker and a very popular guest here on Focus. And he and his wife, Sandy, have been married for over 50 years. The book, one of, I think, 60 that he's written that we're going to be really talking about today is called The Intimate Connection, Secrets to a Lifelong Romance.
And we'll have a link in the episode show notes for that. Let me mention as well, Jim, that we were so glad to have your wife, Jean, join us for the conversation. And let's go ahead and hear that now as Jim asked Dr. Lehman for the secret to a lifelong marriage on today's Focus on the Family.
Well, let's start with the big question. With all your years of experience, Kevin, as a marriage and family psychologist, what would you say is the number one secret of successful marriages? Well, I got to tell you this. When they asked me to do this book, I had a conversation with Mrs. Uppington, my bride.
Her real name is Sandy, but my nickname for her is Mrs. Uppington because she's the classy one of the two of us. And I said, honey, are we happily married? And she said, you're very happily married.
And so when I heard that, I said, okay, I'll do that book. But it's really pretty simple as, you know, God gave us marriage as an opportunity to serve one another. That word serve is a little touchy these days in some circles. And I think basically it gets down to becoming an expert or really good at just knowing what your husband's needs are or what your wife's needs are and servicing her, being a servant. And again, talk to a group of women. I talk to women groups all the time and I say servant and man, the years are back. They're looking at you funny.
But I got news for you. That's what marriage is. It's being a servant to one another. Well, in your book, The Intimate Connection, you mentioned this context of have a lifestyle of intimacy. What does that mean?
Well, that's something you work toward. I'd love to tell you that most couples in the church have an intimate marriage. But my observation is they have a his and her marriage. They have the married singles lifestyle. They married single the married singles lifestyle.
What is that? Well, they're married, but you wouldn't know it because so many of the things they do are reminiscent of the single lifestyle. So it's kind of like a roommate in many ways. And women are the relational gurus of our society. They're like that little rabbit that keeps going.
They hug anything that moves their wordsmiths. And so many times it's just easy with all the stress on couples today. So many men and women who have young children are in the workplace. I shake my head sometimes I say how these young couples do it. It's just tough to find time where we can be together and share. When you say one of the biggest reasons couples feel disconnected is because they don't understand each other.
Now, I'm sure that's not happening in your marriage after 53 years to Mrs. Uppington. But I mean, what what what's at the root of that? We don't understand each other.
Is that the problem? They're so weird, Jim. OK, you know, jeans loading up here and just keep going. It's like digging your own pot there. No, but just hear me out for a second.
Then you can harpoon me. They go potty in groups of six, eight, 10, 12. It's not uncommon for a woman to say, I'm going potty.
Anyone want to come along? It's a social event. Men do scratch their head at that one.
Yeah. I mean, it's a social event. They talk and and talk and talk. And women, you know, men like sort of the USA Today version, sort of because most of us as men like to be problem solvers. You know, and my plea to women because they tell me my husband doesn't talk. Your husband will talk, but you have to know how to approach this dude, OK?
If this is late breaking news for you, if you're driving, hang out of the wheel. Us men across the board. Now, let me give you a disclaimer. About 15 percent of marriages are not represented, what I'm about to tell you. But we men across the board hate your questions. We don't like the Y word.
We get defensive. If you want your husband to talk to you, trust me on this. Honey, could I ask your opinion about something? There's not a man in this building that doesn't have an opinion. I'm not saying it's a good opinion or a right opinion.
I'm just saying we've got an opinion. That's a good way to stage it. All right, Jean, this is the dangerous part. You have a story from our marriage that illustrates the differences between men and women. And I seem to remember it had something to do with your birthday.
This is going to be painful. Go ahead. Hit me.
Well, no, there was one year that I think we had spent we had spent more money than we usually do. And I remember telling you, Jim, I don't want you to buy me a gift for my birthday. Now, can I translate that?
I'm good. We don't need to do anything for your birthday. Liar. Well, that's the problem. I said, please don't buy me a gift.
So my birthday comes. This is bad. I'm so sorry. Do you forgive me?
Yes, I do forgive you. And and they didn't do anything. They being me and the boys.
Right. There was no burnt breakfast in bed from the boys and there were no handmade cards from the boys. Jim heard me telling him he thought I was saying don't do anything. Well, what I heard was you got the day off.
You know, you're bringing up guilt feelings of me and I always say women are the guilt gathers a life. But your story, Gene, painfully reminds me the guy that's written a lot of books on marriage and family. I bought my dear sweet bride. I can't remember if it was a birthday present or an anniversary present, but it was a. This is just embarrassing to say a four place toaster. That's awesome.
Not two, but four. I think about that now and I say, Lehman, you're dumb as a rock. Why did it have a bagel set? It was as good a toaster as you could find.
But we used to. But this communication thing with women, I got to tell you a story about Mrs. Uppington because I had to take Lauren, our youngest daughter. By the way, Lauren was a little surprised. If you don't know the Lehman history, we had the shocker at forty two.
And the surprise at forty eight. And wow, I had to take Lauren to the pediatric dentist. He was about three foot, six inches tall. Little guy.
And I don't know what a pediatric dentist does tell you the truth, except work on little kids teeth, I guess. But anyway, I said, honey, it's I'm late. I got to get there.
Tell me I got to know where I'm going. She said, you can't miss it. You can't miss it.
Now listen to this. She said there's flowers in the front of the building, but that's not the entrance. You got to go around the side entrance. You can't miss it.
Now, Tucson, Arizona, where I live is a million people in the metropolitan area. OK, then I'll I'll go now and I'll start looking for flowers. Just give me the give me the address.
Give me the cross streets. But honest to Pete, that was her response. You can't miss it. Did you get lost? No, I finally got the address out of her. But I mean, I think I could have found it.
That's the point. Let me give you I said the women a word. One more thing. It just pops into mind. And we live about two miles as the crow flies from a place called Ventana Canyon Resort. It's a Lowe's beautiful hotel. And we had two ducks fly into our pool. And those little suckers stayed there for three days.
And we have a little cocker who barked all the time at those ducks and the ducks didn't leave. Unbeknownst to me, my dear sweet wife calls Ventana Canyon Resort. Hello.
Yes, this is Sandy Lehman. I'd like you to come and get your ducks out of our pool. Excuse me, ma'am. Hey, hey, Harry, pick up line one.
I got a live one. She really thought that they were owned the property of Ventana Canyon because they do have some ducks up there. But that's very sweet. It is sweet.
Jean would have just fed the ducks. She says things that I just shake my head about sometimes. That's OK. She's got a great heart. And so you learn you learn. I say women lie like dogs with tongue in cheek. I'll be a few moments.
I'll just be a few minutes. That's not going to happen. But I've learned to sort of work out a formula to figure out. So I'm not asking her, like, what time you're going to be home and sitting there like an idiot, making a fool of myself that, hey, you're going to be home two hours ago. No. You have to understand who she is.
Meet those needs as best you can. Yeah. This is the perfect setup for the next question, which I wanted to ask. You say true intimacy in marriage starts with recognizing each other's needs. That's what you're expressing. So let's dig into it. First, for us husbands, identify the basic needs of women and what they are. And, Jean, you're going to hold them accountable, right? Absolutely. Because you're the one at the table representing women. Well, you tell us if he's right on or not. So, Dr. Lehman, what are these needs that women have?
Well, again, just notice, I think God was the original humorist when he came up with this one. The two shall become one because we're so different. Number one for women, I think, is affection. It's huge in a woman's life. Number two is communication. Now, every man listening, what are we basically as men not great at? Number one is affection. So it's affection, communication, commitment to the family. That's basically what it is for women. And men are completely different. They want to feel needed, wanted, respected, appreciated, and fulfilled.
And that includes the S word, sexual. They want that wife to pursue that chubby body that's gained 14 pounds since you walked down the aisle. And that's just the reality.
Don't write me a nasty letter. That's God's plan. That's how he made us.
It's very different. Well, Jean, let's get to another story. I don't know why we've done this, but you identify closely with the need for good communication, like Kevin's talking about. Explain that need, where you and I have, you know, maybe played that out in our marriage. Communication.
Well, yes. I was a night person, a little less of one now, but you are and always have been a morning person. And we would go to bed and I am ready to upload all the data that has happened in my day.
Nails on a chalkboard. And this and that and talking about my girlfriends and my family. And that's when I want to talk about resolve, like our deep relational issues. The moment we put our heads on the pillows and then later with kids, that's when I want to talk about the problems with the kids. Well, and Jim, I mean, you finally had to gently say, you know, Jean, when my head is hitting the pillow, I'm not totally with you. I mean, I go to sleep in like three minutes. It's amazing.
He does have some political leanings. That's very good. But it did take a while. That was probably way down the road of our marriage. When I finally had the courage to say, I can't really hang with you here. Well, but and I just in the last week, I mean, I really had to practice this. I wanted I I wanted to talk to you about probably one of our sons.
Probably. And I stopped myself because it's bedtime and bless you. I know. And I and also you told me that if you start problem solving at night at bedtime, then he can't go to sleep.
I can't unplug once I get into it. And so, I mean, we had to talk about that. But you also thought. Yeah.
OK. So the other thing early in our marriage, we're probably year number three, I can remember specifically a moment where we're brushing our teeth in the morning together. And I'm chipper as can be because it's morning. This is the time God intended for man and woman to speak.
I mean, this is it. This is all good. We're supercharged.
I'm ready to take on the day for the Lord. And I noticed Jean's not responding to me. And I thought for a long time, I thought, why is she mad at me?
I mean, I'm serious. How are you doing? You sleep well? Nothing.
Not even a grunt. And I thought she's so mad at me, she won't even respond to me. Well, you married a very pretty woman, as did I. But I'll tell you, Mrs. Uppington in the morning, to put it bluntly, she's got issues. I mean, she does. And she's got this stuff she puts on her face.
I don't know what it's called, but it's really it looks to me, it looks like poppy seed dressing or something. But she puts it on her face and it takes a while for the beauty to come forth. But I always kid people, I say, we're night and day different. I'm like, I go to bed early. And now that I'm older, I mean, I'm drooling at eight thirty. And she says, you can make it to eight thirty?
Yeah. She says, you can't go to bed. But I said, well, watch me. But I'm telling you, she's she's half raccoon. She's up till two o'clock reading books or some of her best friends. And I told John last night we were visiting. And I said, about two o'clock, she goes out and tips over the garbage in the neighborhood and goes back to bed. But we're night and day different.
I'm up early with a happy face. She doesn't like that. So you need to talk about those things. And I so appreciate, Jean, you know, working to figure that out, that you can't bring up a big problem. It's a learning process.
Just like forgiveness is a learning process. And it's not a personal thing. If Jim falls asleep, it's not personal.
It's just something that is right. This is Focus on the Family. And we are enjoying a conversation today with Dr. Kevin Lehman. And I think we're getting into some of the content, Jim, of his book, The Intimate Connection Secrets to a Lifelong Romance.
We want to encourage you to get your copy. We've got details in the episode show notes because of the humor of it all. Let's quickly restate the three things that men need to know about wives.
What are the core things they need? Say them again. Yeah. You know, as a man, just a reminder, this is simple as ABC affection. OK. And affection takes all different forms. It's that little touch. It's that single rose.
It's that little note you wrote and put a stamp on it, put it in the mail. It's all those little it's that email that says, I can't wait to get home. And when you walk in the door, part of affection is, honey, what can I do to help?
If you've got little ankle biters around, I'm telling you, she sees you as the best reliever in the National League coming to help her. And when you sit down and do nothing, the anger can build in trouble. So, again, affection, communication. And that means you have to take time to do that. And then commitment to the family, being a good dad. She purrs like a kitten when you're a good dad. Believe me.
OK, now the opposite again, just to recap what wives need to understand about helping the needs of her husband. Yeah. Ladies, I know you're busy. You push six and a half hours to bring this little one to life. Eight and a half for that middle child.
That youngest, he just came out real quick. OK, I get it. But you have to understand this man. And I know some of you say, Lehman, I have four children because my husband's the fourth one. That's not healthy.
It's not good. He needs to be the husband. But you've got to speak well of him, especially in front of other people.
You have to understand he needs to be wanted and needed by you. That's physically and emotionally. And that leads to fulfillment. That's just the way it is.
No, that's really good. You have this analogy of the tea kettle to talk about emotions. Explain the tea kettle analogy. Well, you know, we tend to talk when life happens, little cheap shots, little something, you know, a little burr under the saddle.
And well, I'm not going to say anything about it, you know, and but I'm going to remember it. It simmers and then there's a trigger and then it blows. And it's sort of like I hate to use this analogy, but I think it's a good one. You have the flu. OK. And you say, man, oh, and you throw up and you feel better because you throw up.
But when you explode and it's anger and it's venom, you've literally thrown up on your mate. Yeah, you feel better. But what have you done?
And so it's really important that you to quote my favorite one of my favorite all time movies. What about Bob? It's all about baby steps for some of us as men, baby steps. But it takes a while to understand this gift. This woman again, I say it with tongue in cheek, but they are weird. I took said I do Fox News in New York a lot. I took Sandy to New York with me recently. And there's Nine West shoe store. Now, ladies probably know what Nine West is.
Of course. And she's in there two hours, Jean. And I was in there about 10 minutes, walked out, walked around Sixth Avenue and went back in and make sure she was still with us.
And she came out two hours later, two hours later, and she doesn't have a shoe. And she says, we need to go to Soho. We need to go to Sam Edelman in Soho. Well, if you know New York City, Manhattan and Soho is a long cab ride away. So like a train seal, I find myself in Soho and she's in Sam Edelman for an hour.
That's three hours looking at shoes. And I'm so glad I took her to New York with me. And but when she came out, she had to she was a nine and a half narrow. How many men know what your shoe size of your wife is?
Nine and a half narrow. And she had two boxes of shoes with her. And it was like she had just struck the lottery or something. She was just beaming that she had these shoes. And so I say, you know what?
She's happy. I'm happy. There you go. That's good.
That's an old adage, isn't it? Listen, you outline you outline five things we need to know about feelings. What are those five?
Well, thanks for the quiz. Number one, feelings aren't right or wrong. They're just your feelings. OK. And here's what I want people to really understand. When you share feelings, it draws you together. When you go down the judgment trail, now the defenses go up. That's too.
So how do you do that? How do you differentiate between sharing your feelings and sharing judgment about the other person's feelings with me? This is just for me.
I got to sit on it a while. I really do. Because if I just follow my feelings and there's another one, everybody think about this. Just say we we follow our feelings for the next 30 days together.
OK, I got news for you. We're going to be in the county jail together. You can't go through life and follow your feelings.
Gentlemen, you see a good looking chick walking down the street. Get in touch with your feelings. Now follow your feelings. You're going to jail. Somebody cuts you off in traffic.
I know they got a little Christian fish on the back. That doesn't count in my book. But what do you feel like doing? You feel like putting them in the ditch. So you can't go through life. God gave us a brain. And, you know, I think when we get to problems in marriage, I really believe they're they're basically spiritual problems.
I think so many of us brought so much baggage into marriage and we try to do this on our own. And what I've learned and look at me, I'm old. I mean, I've learned to say, Lord, come on, I need some teaching here. And that's where the Holy the Holy Spirit, everybody talks about the Holy Spirit led me to do this and led me to do that.
The way I see it, the Holy Spirit's a helper and he helps you to move forward. So I need a little time to sift through that. No, that's good. One of the I thought good tools that you talk about in the book, the intimate connection is the three one one rule. Jean and I actually mentioned that.
And we're going to try to implement that in our communication. What is it real quickly? I mean, you can do it two minutes. I call it three one one would take three minutes and there's an issue. OK, so you're going to face each other.
I mean, if you're rich and have a jacuzzi, more power to you. But for the rest of us, just hold hands, eyeball to eyeball. The rules are one person speaks for three minutes. Then the next person gets 60 seconds to sort of clarify what they heard. Then that next person gets a minute to say, well, no, that's not exactly what I meant.
Here's what it's real simple. And it helps you get the feelings out. I love the example of a balloon. You blow air into a balloon. Remember when you were a kid, you blow it and sometimes it snapped in your face. Well, you remember when you blew it and then you took the neck of it and you made that terrible noise to bother your parents or your brother or sister over and over and over again. But there's a good analogy there that sometimes when that when that stuff comes out in communication, it's not easy to listen to because your mate's telling you something that you really need to hear. But notice that the balloon goes down. And what's the odds of it bursting into a huge thing?
Very little because you've let some air out. So if that'll help people with that three one one concept, the point is you need to make time to talk. Yeah. The other four. I mean, this is really number two of the five is communication.
Pick it up from there because we didn't get all five. So again, remind us, you have a right to express your feelings. OK. And a lot of us were brought up in homes where when we tried to share our feelings, let's face it, we got shot down. And then when you ask your mate, why do you feel that way?
You heard what I said earlier. I mean, us men hate the Y word. So when you say, why do you feel that way? You're just being demeaning to your mate. So saying things like, honey, tell me more about that. I want to understand more about how you feel.
I want to understand how you feel. That's a phrase every spouse longs to hear. And we're going to press pause in the conversation today, but come back to part two next time in our conversation with Dr. Kevin Lehman. John, we took a pretty lighthearted approach to this topic, but I know this can really be a serious pain point for many couples.
If that describes you, please reach out to us. We have caring Christian counselors who will listen and pray with you completely free of charge. We have our Hope Restored Marriage Intensive. We've been amazed to see how God has provided this year and allowed us to continue helping hurting couples even and especially during the pandemic.
And if you need help, our number is 800-AFAMILY or click the link in the episode show notes. So many professionals in the culture right now, John, are saying marriage is the core issue in the culture, the breakdown of marriage and family. If your marriage isn't struggling, but you want to give families hope this Christmas season, please become a Focus supporter today. We've heard from thousands of hurting people this year, not just couples on the verge of divorce, but also families struggling financially.
Pastors in the throes of depression and single parents barely getting by. We need your help to continue being a resource and a safe place for people who feel like they've got nowhere else to turn. Would you join the team of listeners who make this ministry possible? When you become a monthly supporter or give a gift of any amount today, I'll send you a copy of Dr. Kevin Lehman's book, The Intimate Connection, to say thank you and to help you create the soul connection in your own marriage.
Donate today when you call 800-AFAMILY or check the episode show notes for the link. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. I felt like my husband truly heard me. I've received some great tools from the counselors that have changed my life and my marriage. To begin the journey of finding health, go to HopeRestored.com today.
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