Embracing Your Role as a Spouse

Man, I knew my marriage was falling apart.

I just didn't know how to fix it. I felt like I would always be alone, even if I stayed married. At Focus on the Family's Hope Restored Marriage Intensive, we offer hope to couples in crisis so they can have the marriage they've always dreamed of. For the first time, 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. And whenever I think about what it means for me to be a husband, what does Jenny need from me? She needs me to be a friend to her, that walk alongside of her all throughout life. She needs me to be a partner that shares the busyness of life with her.

And then she needs the intimacy of what love looks like. Well, that's Kevin Thompson, and he's with 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. John, I hope listeners know that at the heart of Focus on the Family is marriage. I mean, that's what we're doing 24-7, really, marriage and parenting.

And we are concentrating on that today. Every day, we hear from couples that have challenges in their marriages. I mean, I'm grateful for them calling our counseling team and others maybe getting a resource into their hand to help them do better in their marriage.

I think that's what it's all about. But the reality is, when you can fine-tune your marriage, you'll do better. That's the bottom line, and we're going to concentrate on that today to explore and to better understand our role as a married person to help you become more resilient and stronger in that relationship. We've invited Pastor Kevin Thompson to give us some great insights from his book, Friends, Partners, and Lovers. And we do have that book at the website.

Call 800, the letter A in the word family, or stop by the episode notes where we've got a link. And Kevin is the lead pastor of Community Bible Church in western Arkansas and regularly meets with and counsels couples. He's a marriage and parenting conference speaker as well and has written a number of books. We're going to be talking about that one Jim referenced, Friends, Partners, and Lovers. I should mention that Kevin and his wife Jenny have two children, Ella and Silas. Kevin, welcome back to Focus. Thanks so much for having me.

Hey, okay, you're a pastor. You see a pretty wide array of disarray in couples, if I could say it that way. In fact, you had an older couple, Eugene and Joanne, who had been married for 70 years. I wish I could have met them. What an amazing thing to be married 70 years. And what did they tell you was the secret?

These are people we should listen to for sure. What was their secret for 70 years of marriage? Yeah, Eugene and Joanne, they were both in the military. They never had children. They actually never went to church until in their 70s. Some people in our church built a relationship with them. They came, came to know Christ, and just became some of our favorite people around the church at that time.

This is about 15 years ago, so our staff was all really young. They never had children, so we kind of adopted them as grandparents. So one day they stopped by to bring me some pumpkin bread. And they were talking and we were having a great conversation.

Several staff members kind of came in. And then it came time to give me the bread and neither one of them had it. And they had a little lover's spat at that moment, blaming the other one for not getting it. So Miss Joanne was in better shape. So she ran home to get it. And as we were sitting there talking to Mr. Eugene, one of my co-workers said, Mr. Eugene, what's the key to being married 70 years? And without a hesitation, he said, tell her every day that you love her.

I thought, how beautiful is that? Well, she came back with the pumpkin bread. She walked in and I said, hey, Miss Joanne, we were asking Mr. Eugene, what's the key to being married 70 years? And she said, oh, tell him every day that you love him.

But how great is that, right? So about six months later, he was in hospice on his deathbed. And I went to go see him and it was just me and him. And I recounted that story. And I said, Mr. Eugene, is that really the key to marriage? And he goes, yep, memorize your answers. There's probably some truth to that.

I thought, how great is that? But unfortunately, marriage can't just be something that you memorize. But there are some very basic principles that I think that go all the way back to God's design of marriage, that sin hasn't changed. And those are the basic roles that you and I are supposed to play as husbands, and then our wives are supposed to play. And we can narrow that down to friends, partners, and lovers.

And we're going to get into that content. Let me start with this question, though. What is, from your research, what is the number one reason for divorce? Yeah, it's a common question, because we think if we can attack the number one reason, then it will lower a good number of divorces. And a lot of people think that it's money. Many people these days think that it's social media, obviously communication difficulties. And all those are accurate, I think. They're all issues within marriage.

But I think they're all symptoms. I think behind that, the biggest issue that I see is a lack of intention whenever it comes to marriage, that you and I do tend not to drift into good things. You're not going to see somebody and they've lost 30 pounds and they're in great shape and ask them, hey, how'd that happen? They'll say, well, you know, it's the strangest thing. I just one day drifted into a workout facility.

I just one day drifted into the vegetable aisle. It takes this tremendous intention to make change within your life. And marriage is the same way. And we begin relationships extremely intentional. You intentionally call the person and ask them out. You intentionally plan the dates. You intentionally think about the gifts you're going to give them. But over time, the busyness of life, we tend to lose that intention. And as we lose that intention, we drift into a second-rate marriage.

Boy, that's really good. You identify three roles a spouse should fill and then, you know, how that fits with God's design for marriage. What are those and how do we see them fitting into God's Word? Yeah, so you go back into Genesis 2 and God creates man and says it's not good for man to be alone. And he wants to create a helper fit for him. And so you have all the animals that are created, a lot of good things that are there, but none of them are the perfect fit. And so then you have the creation of woman. And in that moment, you have this great compatibility.

And yet they're also given a task. And then at the end of Genesis 2, you see this very unique intimacy that they're going to have. And so whenever I think about the original design, before the leaves, right, before sin entered the world, what did marriage look like? Well, marriage was this friendship. There was a companionship that Adam could have with somebody who was like him, different but like him, unique from the rest of the animals. They had a task to play.

So they were supposed to partner together and being stewards of God's creation. And then there was this very unique relationship connection between them, and that is intimacy. And whenever I think about what it means for me to be a husband, what does Jenny need from me? She needs me to be a friend to her, that walk alongside of her all throughout life. She needs me to be a partner that shares the busyness of life with her.

And then she needs the intimacy of what love looks like. And whenever I'm doing marriage conferences, I always have couples stand up. And I say, okay, here's how this works. Everybody stands side by side with your spouse and hold their hand. That's what it looks like to be a friend. You're walking through life together. Now turn and stand back to back. And I'm scanning the horizon 180 degrees this way. My wife is scanning the horizon 180 degrees that way, looking for threats, looking for opportunities.

As partners, we always have each other's back. Now stand and look face to face. And what's funny is in that moment, I lose the attention of the audience. I've had it the whole time, but all of a sudden in that moment, there's smiles, there's laughter, there's little comments, there's touch. It's interesting. We don't look at our spouses enough in the eye, but that's what intimacy looks like.

That somebody is going to see the fullness of who I am and still love me, friend, partner, and lover. That's a good exercise. I'm going to talk to Jean about that tonight.

Let's face each other here. But you mentioned that friendship is really the key and that's the, perhaps the most important. I'm sure all three are important, but friendship being the most important. You had a little trip to McDonald's, I think in the book that helped illustrate this.

How'd that go? No, I think so. And to me, it's almost like a house that friendship is the foundation partnership or the walls. And then the roof is really intimacy that protects you. But whenever my kids were little, they loved to go to McDonald's. And so one day I took them. And as we were sitting there eating our happy meals, I looked over and there was this couple that looked retirement age and they were reading the newspaper. There was a cookie and they both had coffee. And then he'd put his paper down and he'd say, hey, have you seen this? And they'd had this little discussion about what it is he was reading. And then the paper would come back up and then they'd go about the thing. And then all of a sudden the woman would say, hey, what's a six letter word for this?

And he'd put his paper down and look at what was taking place. And I thought it was this beautiful imagery of what friendship is like. As you're walking side by side through life together, you're experiencing life together, but then you're bringing back to the couple what those experiences are like. And to me, it is this inner weaving of being by ourselves and then being together. And I thought this couple just gave an image of that that was so beautiful of what my life with Jenny needs to be.

I need to experience life that that she's not going to be alongside of me at every moment, but bring back the good, ask for help with the things that I need help with. And it's this constant weaving back and forth. I think that's one of the powers of technology. We talk about all the downsides of technology and rightfully so, but to be able to text your spouse and say, hey, I'm thinking about you today or to I mean, what I've done. Does that count? I hope so, because I do that a lot.

But even this morning, you know, being in beautiful Colorado Springs, I shot a picture of the mountains and sent them to Jenny. And, you know, part of that's love, part of that's jealousy. It's all the same thing, right? But there's playfulness that can come into that.

I think it's a beautiful picture. And I think for me, it's not that a good marriage necessarily has less negative events in their marriage. It's that a good marriage has more positive events. And so we have to be intentional about coming back to our spouse with good things, with happy things, with meaningful things and sharing that part of our lives with them.

Yeah. Well, you know, Dr. Greg Smalley on our team here, he often will talk about how marriages can fall into business relationships, right? So you're just managing the budget, you're just managing schedule together. And you don't have kind of the deeper, good attributes of marriage. You've mentioned a couple of ideas on how to develop that friendship. Do you have some other ideas on how to nurture friendship and especially think of guys who, you know, we like the rooftop, what you talked about, the intimacy is the roof.

So we'd like to go to the roof pretty quickly. How do we slow that down and make sure that the foundation of friendship, as you described it, is really healthy? Yeah, I think the very first thing is we have to make sure our spouse is our first person that we turn to.

And so if something were to happen today, good or bad, who's the first person you call? There's something about the first telling. The first telling has more emotions specifically for men. If men really struggle in their relationship with showing their spouse the emotion, then they need to make sure that the first person they tell the good or bad story to is not their buddy.

It's not a coworker. Instead, it is their spouse because that first telling tends to have a lot of emotion. Whenever I do funerals, sometimes I'll prepare.

I think it's going to be an emotional funeral. I'll go through it several times to get the emotion out. Well, if your wife is saying that you need more emotion in your conversation, you need to get the emotion in. And a lot of times what's happening is good things are happening and we go to a coworker and we tell them. Or a struggle is happening and we go to a friend on our way home and tell them. So that by the time that we're talking to our spouse, that emotion is gone and our spouse feels like they're getting something else. And so I think to build the friendship first and foremost, you want to make sure that your spouse is the very first person you turn to in good and bad.

And then beyond that, there's a variety of things. The simplest recommendation I give to couples all the time is take a walk. Together. Together.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, sometimes by yourself. Why don't you go take a walk? But take a walk together.

Absolutely. Think about this picture of friendship being side by side in life. Think about the things that you do side by side with people. I play golf. You ride side by side in the golf cart.

Many people go fishing, right? You think about movies. You think about car rides. Those are side by side activities. And so you need to look at how can we get side by side picking up new hobbies. But a walk is just a productive conversations going.

You're seeing other things is a productive thing. Yeah. Let's conclude the friendship part and just mention the healthiness or unhealthiness with friendships outside of marriage.

What's a good approach? Yeah. And so your spouse, your spouse really should be your best friend. I mean, that's the way it's created.

That's the way it's built. I don't doubt that at all. And then you need to have healthy relationships outside of that, which means there have to be strong boundaries. And as spouses, you work through that.

I mean, I firmly believe in the wife veto. If Jenny is uncomfortable with one of my friends, I'm going to trust her on that, male or female. It could be that she doesn't like this guy friend that I have because his values are so radically different than mine. I'm going to trust her on that. And so it doesn't mean that she has to like every friend of mine or I have to like, you know, necessarily enjoy hanging around with every friend of hers. But it does mean that her friendship to me is so important that she's going to be first and that she's going to have a deep impact and influence on the friendships that I have. And they have to be strong and boundaries to say that this relationship with my spouse is unique.

It is special and nothing is going to touch it in a negative way. And that describes, again, a healthy marriage. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And our guest today is Pastor Kevin Thompson. We're talking about some of the concepts in his book Friends, Partners and Lovers. Get your copy when you call 800-AFAMILY or stop by the episode notes.

We'll have the link in there for you. Kevin, I so appreciate the illustration you mentioned a little while ago about the house and the foundation being friendship and the structure being partnership and then the roof being that intimacy. Lovers, as your book title says. Moving to the partner component, describe the role of partner. You know, it's a word that's thrown around a lot in our culture today. How do we assess the partnership role in our own marriage?

How do we see that and score it, I guess? Yeah, if you would have told me, so Jenny and I have been married 21 years, right? If you would have told me 20 years ago about this idea of partnership, I would have been like, well, that's kind of cold. That's kind of, you know, what's the point of that? Sounds like a business deal.

No, that's exactly right. But actually, at this point, this is the area of marriage that actually excites me the most from the standpoint of it's so overlooked and yet there's such potential within it. And so, yes, partnership does talk about the idea of just managing the household and raising the kids and making the money. But I think it's far more than that. I think it's this idea that every single day there's somebody in my life that wakes up and thinks, how can I make his life better and how can I help him create the life that he desires to have? That's what partnership ultimately is about.

How can I make her dreams come true? So literally, I get this picture of Jenny and I standing back to back and I'm scanning the horizon 180 degrees, looking for threats and opportunities. And then she's doing the same thing. And so immediately my vantage point is broadened because of Jenny. There are things that she takes care of that I don't have to worry about in any way.

We laugh all the time. For whatever reason, with our children, I take care of the ear. She takes care of the teeth. So I have a daughter with Down syndrome who has ear problems. So I always take her to the ENT, always, no questions asked. Jenny always does the dentist and orthodontist. Have no idea how that happened. It just kind of happened.

And we re-evaluate it on occasion. Is this working for you? But it's just life is easier. I don't have to worry about teeth. Jenny's got the teeth.

I got the ears. And that compounds in every aspect of life. And I think in marriage, in a strong partnership, a strong partnership will literally divide your weaknesses and multiply your strengths.

Think about that. If I'm weak in something and Jenny is strong, well, she gets to take the lead in that area. And my weakness is covered up. It's downplayed. It's diminished.

If I'm strong in an area, Jenny's strength can now multiply my impact and what's going on, how I can go about it. Even in writing books, she's a tremendous editor. I'm a horrible editor, right? My son, the other day, he was diagramming sentences. And he said, dad, can you help me with this?

This is homeschool in the midst of COVID, right? And I said, buddy, I can't do that. And he goes, but you write books. And I said, I have nine editors.

And he said, can we send it to one of them? But the idea of I know what Jenny's strengths are, and that covers up my weaknesses. And so I truly believe that it divides my weaknesses and multiplies my strengths. And partnership to me is where many couples, I think, don't understand the potential that lies within marriage, that this can really be a fun aspect of their relationship, not just a cold aspect.

And I think, again, it points exactly to God's design, because we look at Genesis, it's the completer. You know, we typically marry people that are somewhat opposite to us, extrovert, marriage, marries an introvert, etc. So it's almost like we come together and we complete each other. And then we got to lean on those strengths of each other. And that's where some of the friction comes in marriage where we don't, we believe our instincts are better than our spouses. So we're going to do it this way. And the spouse knows that's not true.

I'm stronger in this than you are. And that creates friction. Let me ask you, we're three guys sitting at the table here, and we've talked about the roof quite a bit, that idea of intimacy. I like the fact that you're positioning that in such a way that the structure is partner. And friendship is the foundation again, because sometimes I think we as men, and I want to represent the female thought at this table in this moment, just knowing my wife Jean well enough, you don't build the walls on top of the roof.

So meaning intimacy, physical intimacy. So I think speak to that aspect, how do we make sure that we're, we're building the partnership walls strong, so that the rooftop goes on and the partnership can hold the roof up that rooftop of intimacy? Yeah, when I really think the idea of you think about if you were to start a business and you were going to go with a business partner, who would you want as a business partner, you would want somebody who's going to give an equal amount of effort of care, just as much as you are going to care, is going to work just as hard as you're going to work. But you do not want somebody who's just like you, because what's the point?

The more you can diversify your strengths and abilities in that partnership, the stronger the business can be. And so it is with marriage. And so my question for couples, whenever it comes to the partnership within the relationship, is not are you doing the same things? I don't want you doing the same things. You're supposed to complement one another. My question is, are you putting in the equal amount of work, of effort, of attention, of desire?

Is that happening? And where that is happening, there's unlimited potential for a couple. What's scary to me is when I see couples who are in trouble, many times they have devolved into a parent-child relationship.

One of them is not taking the full responsibility of the relationship, of the partnership, and instead is acting like a child. My kids don't have to care where the money comes from. My kids don't have to be concerned with how food's going to show up on the table. They just know it's going to happen. It's just going to magically appear, right?

Well, they have a mother and father that take care of that for them. It's supposed to be that way. That's not supposed to be that way for me.

Jenny's not my mom, right? Now we do different things. And yes, there are some things that she does that I don't, they just appear and it's great. But there are other things I'm doing too. There's equal effort that's going on. And in many relationships where the couples are struggling, the woman is spending money without any thought or concern about the budget and the man is struggling to keep it all together in some way, right? The woman is working all day and then coming home and doing a hundred percent of the things around the house and the guy is just on the couch. Well, the person on the couch is a child. That's how a child comes home after school, right?

They do a couple chores and then they're done. The majority of the work goes to the parent. And so whenever I see partnership break down, this inequality forms in which one is doing a majority of the work and the investment and taking responsibility and another one isn't.

And that becomes a very dangerous place. When a parent child exists, you need professional help. Well, I was going to ask you, I think what's jumped into my mind is who gets the score, the test, right? And that points right to the marital conflict because whoever's feeling like an equitable, reciprocal relationship is not here.

That's usually the one who's scoring the exam, right? They're the ones rating the relationship and that's where frustration, bitterness, resentment begins to build. Now we're right on the core issue of why marriages are breaking down because they're not healthy in the way that you're describing it. Staying in love, this is a much better area. Staying in love really is a choice.

I mean, you know, 70 years like Eugene and his wife, that's a long time. It helps to look back at that moment when we fell in love. And I think you recall a special moment with Jenny about your first date in the book.

What happened? First date memories. I love these. That's exactly right. And so I was a pastoral ministry major at Oklahoma Baptist University with a minor in psychology. And so I was actually taking a family intimacy course at that moment, which is hilarious to look back on now. I would love to sit back through that now, right?

A 20-year-old kid. What did I know, right? I'm sure you could pontificate. No, there's no doubt. So, but I remember reading in that class that idea that generally speaking, women tend to make the first touch. That tends to happen.

I don't know if that's true or not. Yeah. Some kind of touch of some sort. And that the man needs to reciprocate that.

And that there's this kind of intricate dance that's going on that couples aren't really even aware of that anybody could anybody listening who's not married currently on their next date, they'll notice, right? And so I asked Jenny out. We went out downtown Oklahoma City. We walked around for hours.

It was beautiful. And I'll never forget, we were talking and I made a joke and she hit me kind of just, you know, just kind of punched me just very lightly, playfully. And so we kept on walking and suddenly hit me. Oh, wait, she just touched me. I have to touch her back. There has to be some way to touch her back. It was like this mental decision.

No, that's exactly right. Class has taught me, right? So I just look for just a touch on the shoulder, right?

Very easy. But it's interesting looking back on that of the power of non-sexual touch and the importance of that and how that really kind of goes back to friendship. It really does. That idea of touch goes back to friendship. It plays into the intimacy, no doubt. But you think about it. I mean, if I make a great putt on the golf course, my buddy's going to high five me, right? If I'm grieving, my friends are going to embrace me. And so there is this necessary non-sexual touch that I think if couples would increase, they would then see the intimacy increase.

And notice what's happening. If you want to be a better lover, generally speaking, how do you do that? Become a better friend and a better partner. That's right. Build the foundation in the walls.

I'm not saying it goes just that easily, but generally speaking for the average couple out there that's in a decent marriage and they want it to be just a little bit better, what they need to be thinking about is friendship. I say in the book that skittish is the opposite of sexy, right? Skittish. What does that mean? There's no trust. And whenever I think about these roles, friendship is built on this concept of trust. Partnership then is built on the idea of respect. Well, if you have trust and respect, intimacy can be pretty good. But if either those two aren't present, you're in trouble.

And we're right near the end. And that was really the next question, the five keys. And you've mentioned a couple of them, the five keys to saving your marriage, which you list and I'll read them and then you can just give us a highlight or two. Humility, respect, mercy, communication, and resilience.

So I mean, they're right there in the book. I think those are really strong. Let me just pick one, resilience. How does resilience in your marriage help you have a long-term committed marriage, a lifelong marriage? It is this idea of we're going to make it, whatever it takes. No matter what. Whatever it takes, we're going to make it.

Now notice what that means. Because a lot of couples think we're going to make it, but then they're not willing to go get counseling. They're not willing to go to Hope Restored.

They're not willing to take the next step. Whatever it takes means that I'm not going to care about my appearances. I'm not going to care about my reputation, that literally I will sacrifice everything in order to make sure I do whatever is necessary for Jenny and I to have a successful relationship. And that is our mindset. And so what that means, if we have a problem, we're going to go get help. Well, we're in a small town. What happens if somebody sees us?

Well, they see us. Good. So be it. Yeah, I like that.

And so it is this idea. We have a counselor that's down the office in our church hallway. And I'll tell couples on occasion, you need to go see this counselor. And sometimes they will say, oh, I can't walk this church hallway with all these staff people and them see us go in. And I always tell them, you know what we're thinking in that moment? Good for them. Good for them. They're getting help. Well, I don't sit back and judge, go, I wonder why they're walking in there.

I think to myself, there's a thousand reasons why I need to be walking. Right. That's a better attitude.

And so resilience really does mean to me that we're going to do whatever it takes, which means we're going to confront the true issues in our relationship and not push them aside because we're going to do whatever it takes to make it. Kevin, this has been so great. I mean, I really love the practical advice and your book is so full of more.

And I wish we could keep going just to talk about those basic skill sets. But you're covering a lot of territory. And I hope for the listener, if you are, you know, you're not where you want to be.

It's not desperate, but you want to be in a better spot. This is the kind of resource, friends, partners, and lovers, the kind of book that you really need to sink your teeth into and better understand. Kevin's done a great job of outlining those things that really can get you to a better place. And it's really, Kevin, based off a lot of your research and your countless hours of counseling couples, right? There's no doubt seeing the problems that are there. And then also just asking the question, what does Jenny need from me? And then looking at the Bible and go, okay, there it is.

Those are great questions for all of us. Thanks for being with us today. Yeah, this is some content that really any couple in any season of marriage can use in the relationship. Absolutely, John.

And let me turn to our listeners. I hope you know, Focus on the Family is here for you. Your marriage is important to us and it's important to God. We have great resources available to you, like our Focus on Marriage Assessment, which is a free quiz that you can take at our website.

It takes about five to six minutes. You'll receive instant results telling you areas you're doing well at in your marriage, as well as areas that could use a little attention. We also have Kevin's wonderful book, Friends, Partners, and Lovers, What it Takes to Make a Marriage Work. And we'd like to send that to you when you become a monthly partner of Focus on the Family. You can pledge any amount today to the ministry and we'll send you a copy as our way of saying thank you. We rely on your support.

That's how it works. Your prayer and financial gifts to focus on the family allow us to provide resources like our counseling team for hurting individuals and families. So please join us today and together we will do ministry.

If you can't commit to a monthly amount, that's okay. We get it. We'll send you a copy of Friends, Partners, and Lovers for a one-time gift as well.

Donate and take that marriage assessment and get your copy of Friends, Partners, and Lovers by clicking the link in the episode notes or call 800 the letter A in the word family. Well, join us tomorrow as we talk with Hollywood greats Mark Burnett and Roma Downey on their new movie about the resurrection of Jesus. In our own way, I mean, we're filmmakers, you know, but we're trying to do what he asked us to do through film, which is to spread the gospel. 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 more help you and your family thrive in Christ. Author Jerry Jenkins brings color and depth to the people surrounding Christ. You can find out more at focusonthefamily.com chosen