Encouraging Your Husband to be a Hero (Part 2 of 2)

Hi, I'm Jim Daly and I wanted to remind you about a very important Supreme Court case that's being argued this coming Monday. You may remember the case of high school football coach Joe Kennedy, where he was fired in 2015 for simply going to the 50 yard line after each game and praying silently.

He never forced anybody to join him, he just knelt and prayed and for that he was terminated. Well, Coach Kennedy is finally going to get his day in court. It's Monday at the Supreme Court and we would encourage you to pray for Coach Kennedy, his legal team and the justices who are going to hear the case.

To help with that effort, we've launched a social media campaign along with our good friends at Family Policy Alliance. It's called Pray 50. And of course, every day is a good day to pray, but we want you to especially pray for this Monday. And if you can go out on Sunday with friends, family members and those you know at church, find a football field and go to the 50 yard line if you can and pray for Coach Kennedy.

To help you in that regard, we've created a website you can go to and it'll have more information there for you. It's called Pray50.com. That's Pray50.com.

Thanks for praying. As modern Christians, we want the fruit of a good marriage. We want our husband to love us well. We want him to help with the kids. We want to be good wives that encourage him. That's fruit. The root is what is God doing in my heart?

And do I really trust that God is good? That's Dr. Julie Slattery offering encouragement to any wife who has faced disappointment in marriage. And she's with us again today on Focus on the Family. Your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John, last time we started an insightful conversation and primarily we were addressing wives and their relationship with husbands and the husband's needs.

But we did get the last two needs of wives in at the bottom of the program. So if you missed it, go back and get a download. Get the download on your smartphone.

You can get the Focus app that way or contact us and we'll figure out a way that you can get it. That's the point. It was really good and I'm looking forward to the discussion today. Men that are listening, stick with us. Although we're addressing a lot of this content toward wives and how they treat their husbands, there is a lot in here too for a man and how to treat your wife.

So this is for everybody. Equal opportunity instruction and I'm looking forward to it. I learned some things yesterday that I need to do differently to help my relationship with Jean.

And after 35 years, that's a good thing. There's always room for a refresher course and I really appreciate what Julie had to share and I think a lot of help here for both wives and husbands. Definitely.

Yeah. And Dr. Julie Slattery is a clinical psychologist. She is president and co-founder of Authentic Intimacy, which is a ministry to teach God's design for sexuality and is part of that ministry. She hosts a podcast called Java with Julie. And Jim, you mentioned this last time, Dr. Slattery was actually in the studio here with us for years. So it's always great to have her back. And we're going to be talking more about the content in a book that she's recently revised.

It's called Finding the Hero in Your Husband Revisited, Embracing Your Power in Marriage. And you can learn more about that book. We've got all the details in the episode notes. And let me also mention that we're going to have content today that isn't going to be appropriate for younger listeners.

So please, parents, just be aware of that. Julie, welcome back. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's so good. You are hitting, at least from my perspective, you're hitting so many great points for a marriage to be so much better. If you're a seven, this will get you to ten.

If you're a three, this will get you to an eight, I think at least. And I love that. I love when you use those examples of your audience, primarily women, and the aha effect that you see.

So doing things differently and turning toward God's word to look for those answers really is the right way to go. So I'm looking forward to what we're going to talk about today. And welcome back. Thank you.

Let's get right into it. Submission. Whoo. There's a word that's getting into the deep end of the pool. So when it comes to submission, I can't think of a word that stirs up more energy and more negativity than that one. But the Bible does use that word. What does it mean?

Whoo. Well, I think first of all, we have to address why it's stirring up so much negativity. And there are a lot of women that as soon as they hear that word, they want to throw their smartphone across the room or turn off the radio. I think it conjures up weakness. And for that, women, wait a minute, I'm no weak woman. But what is it hitting?

What nerve is it hitting? Well, it conjures up, like you said, the idea that maybe God wants us to be weak or less than. But I think in today's day and age, we hear so many stories of women that are in abusive marriages and have stayed in that situation because of a wrong understanding of submission. Right.

We're in the middle of the Me Too and the Church Too movement. Oh, men abuse this terribly. Yes.

Yeah. So there's a good reason for women to be upset with it. It's been abused in the church, it's been abused in the Christian home. And so I think we're in an era today where it's become so painful for many women that they just want to discount that altogether. Like, let's just take a big red pen and cross that out in the Bible or describe why it doesn't apply to today's marriage.

But it does. It's not primarily because Paul wrote this in a couple of his letters, it's because marriage is a revelation. It was created to be a human relationship that reveals the nature of how God loves his people. And so when Paul does teach on this in the Scripture, he's saying, in marriage, you're creating something in your relationship that points to Christ's relationship with the church. And so the way a man loves his wife and lays his life down for her, the way a woman responds to her husband, it's not just about your marriage, you're painting a picture of how Christ loves his people. And so we can't so easily just dismiss it.

But we do also have to wrestle with how it's been misused and harmed women. You had a really kind of funny and lighthearted story about you and Mike taking a trip in Colorado that alludes to this thing of submission. What happened? Yeah. So we were driving out to the mountains, and you guys know this drive well because you live in Colorado, but I usually drive when we drive in the mountains because I get car sick if I don't drive. So there's this long stretch of highway, and it's two lanes, and there's nobody usually on it. Highway 24? Yes, you know it.

This is on the other side of Wilkerson Pass. I remember that. And so you may feel the same way as my husband. He's like, this is time where you can go a little faster and make up some lost time. Absolutely. Yeah. So I was already going a little over the speed limit, but he's like, come on, Jules, you can do more than that. Like, you can go a little faster.

Mike. Yeah. So I start going faster. And wouldn't you know it, we pass a police officer, and we see the lights, and I'm like, I was so mad at him. I'm like, this is your fault.

Like you were telling me to go faster. And he's like, I know. I know. I'll take care of it. You just be quiet, you know.

I mean, he meant it like, you don't have to say anything. I will take responsibility. This is my fault. I'll get the ticket. So he knew I was pretty upset.

So yeah. So the police officer comes to the window, says, do you know how fast you're going? And my husband immediately says, I just want you to know it's my fault.

I was telling her to go fast. And the officer says, so should I write you the ticket? And Mike was like, yeah, if you need to, I'll take it. So the police officer goes back to his cruiser, and we're waiting in detention. And I'm looking at my husband like, this is your fault. And he's like, I'm sorry, you're right. And so about five minutes later, the officer comes back and he says to me, ma'am, I'm not going to write you a ticket, but I'm going to give you a piece of advice. Next time, don't listen to your husband. That's awesome. Probably the best lesson he ever taught.

You know, and that is a fun story. But I do think it shows that there are times where women should not listen to their husbands. There are times where husbands are taking the relationship or the family or just making decisions that are ungodly or unwise. And if a woman thinks submission means always just going along with things, she's not understanding what God is actually calling her to do.

Yeah. I wonder, in that healthy biblical context, give us examples where that works, where there's tension and or there's a need for resolution. What is a healthy expression rather than us just talking about the negative side of that?

What does a healthy challenge look like? Yeah, really good question, Jim. I think what we have to understand is submission is an attitude of the heart. When we look at Peter's letter to the church, he talks to wives about having a quiet and submissive spirit.

And then he uses the example of, do you know the biblical woman he's the example of in that passage? Doesn't come to me right now. Okay. All right. It's Sarah. Okay.

Yeah. So he says, be like Sarah and don't give into fear. Now, if we look at the story of Sarah and Abraham, was Sarah a quiet woman?

Doesn't seem so. She had lots of opinions. But here Peter is saying she had a quiet and submissive spirit. And so submission is about your spirit.

It's not about whether your mouth is moving. It's the attitude of, I'm not going to take you down with my words. I'm going to build you up with them, even if they're constructive words of criticism. And the other thing Peter says is don't give way to fear. When women don't have the right spirit in marriage, they're giving way to fear in one way or the other. Either they're afraid to use their voice and they become weak or they give way to fear by being manipulative, controlling, dominant. And so submission is really how do I use my power in a way that's not reacting with fear?

And there's all sorts of applications to this. For example, let's say a woman needs to confront her husband's pornography use. One way of being fearful is I'm not going to confront it because they'll get mad. Another way of being fearful is yelling, being demanding. You get this taken care of right now. That's not inviting intimacy.

So she would approach this where, first of all, bathe in prayer. But honey, there's something very important that I need to talk to you about. I'm aware of your pornography use and it offends me.

I believe it offends God because it's not his design. And this is true in a lot of situations. I know that this is something that started when you were a teenager or younger and I know it's a battle and I'll be with you in that battle. But I'm not okay with this going unaddressed.

Wow, that is powerful. Because my guess would be that a man's greatest fear is that if this is exposed, I lose her rather than fighting through it. And we've had some broadcasts that have addressed that.

And if that's where you're at, definitely go to focus on the family's website or contact us to help find a way to work through that and get to a better place. Julie, let's turn toward the physical intimacy and ask some questions in this area. A lot of people get uncomfortable with this.

I get it. If you're thinking, Jim, why are you covering the subject? It's because we need to. I mean, we have left this to the world to define and to give proportionality to. But this is a biblical principle, the idea that God gave us the gift of sexual intimacy in marriage as his gift to us.

And we need to reclaim that and teach our children about it. So in that context, you describe how you grappled with this intimacy issue early in your marriage. How did you deal with that? What were the frustrations you were feeling? I probably didn't deal with it very well early in my marriage. The frustrations I had, you know, partially was in all candidness, it wasn't enjoyable for me. And a lot of women experienced that in marriage were like, Well, I guess this is a gift for the husband, but not for me. And I think the traditional way of approaching that situation is sort of the way that I approached it was, I guess it's my duty as a wife to meet my husband's needs. And that wasn't necessarily a bad attitude to have to want to have a servant attitude about sexuality.

But I will say that it keeps a couple and it kept us from the fullness of what God designed sex to be in marriage. Can I ask you in that regard? What do you think with the women that you counsel? How many women have that perspective?

You know, it's not enjoyable for me. I do it out of obligation. I think I think it's pretty high.

I think it's probably around 60% or more. Yeah. And that that makes it something important to talk about. What did you learn over, you know, the years with you and Mike? I mean, how did you and, you know, you're a psychologist.

How did you apply all this to say, Oh, my goodness, it took me way too long to learn too. And that's okay. But yeah, you know, for that younger wife, who's right where you were, what are the 123 things you would say, think of it differently? Or how do you get out of that obligation feeling? Well, I would talk to the husband too, because I think that the teaching has been misguided to the husband.

That's good. I when we talk about sex and sexual restraint for singles, we have no problem saying God wants you to use self control. He wants you to value him more than you value getting your own needs met. And for some reason, we feel like once we get married, we shouldn't ever have to use self denial or self control related to our sexuality. And I think the teaching traditionally has been to men, once you get married, you should get all of your needs met sexually in marriage.

And now your wife is obligated to do that. And that has hurt so many marriages hurt so many women, because women have felt like even if for 30 years, I never get any pleasure out of this, God wants me to keep giving my body over and over again. And for women that have had sexual trauma, they can feel re traumatized, they can feel like they're just objects to their husband. They're not being loved and nurtured. And so I think that this sort of simplistic approach to sex and marriage is something we need to take another look at, and for both the husband and wife, and to really even look like at a passage in First Corinthians seven, which is often used to give that kind of teaching and to say, actually, what Paul is saying is that the sexual relationship is a call for both the husband and wife to minister to one another.

That's good. And men need to be encouraged. If your wife has pain during sex, if she has trauma in her past, if she's not enjoying it, the burden in some ways is also on you to say, how do I minister to my wife emotionally and physically? How do I understand the complexity of how she's created sexually?

How do I go on the healing journey with her? And not just say, No, I get my needs met regardless. And so I really think that there needs to be a paradigm shift, where a couple says, God created us for healthy sexuality. And we're going to pursue intimacy, not just check the box of activity. And I think that was something that really helped me as a wife and helped us in marriage. And I think it's something that's been a challenge for a lot of couples. Yeah. Julie, I think it's so important to provide some of those practical handles for people.

I'm sure there's a lot of women and some men that are going, wow, okay, we have not related to each other in a biblical healthy way. So let's encourage couples to go on offense and do this better. What are those practical ideas that people can apply? What's the playbook?

Yeah. So first of all, it's really asking the question, how am I using my power in marriage? If you're a wife, how am I using my power to help my husband feel respected? How am I using my power in terms of what I have to offer that? Let me ask you this in that regard, because it's so important. Getting to what's real. Yeah. And sometimes we can obscure that even when we're asking ourselves that question.

We don't see it because we're blinded by it. So how does a person really objectively see how am I manipulating the marriage and really be able to see the answer? Well, you could ask your spouse. That's one way to do it. Yeah. And I've asked my husband this when I wrote the first version of this book 20 years ago, I went through my three areas of power and I asked him how I was doing. And he didn't give me as good of a report card as I hoped he would.

Yeah. You know, he helped me understand and see, it was hard to hear, but how I could be manipulative. And he started, he would call them my Jedi mind tricks. He'd be like, no. One time he actually said to me, I was talking to him about something and he goes, wait a minute, just a second. And he raised his hands up like an automatic window going up. He goes, okay, manipulator shields are activated.

Go ahead. So he had like a fun way of reminding me and showing me that, hey, be careful. No, that's good. I'm feeling manipulated and both husband and wife need to have a teachable heart. You know, I think we can get so defensive in feeling like I have to be the best wife or the best husband that we can't hear where we're missing the mark, but really just having that sensitive spirit towards the Lord and towards one another of, I want to do better. And I know I haven't done this well. Maybe even growing up, I didn't see the best examples, but help me do this better because I want to be the best husband and wife I can be for you. Well, and you use playing offense. I used it in the question, but you say playing offense is really important as a couple and describe what that looks like. That idea that, you know, we have, especially with physical intimacy, what is playing offense? Yeah, so playing offense is, you know, I use that in reference to physical intimacy because I think a lot of times all we do in marriage is think about the defense. Like how do we check the box? How do we make sure nobody's using porn?

How do we, a fair proof our marriage? And there certainly is a time and a place where we need to have conversation about keeping on defense and having our guard up. But if all you ever play is defense, you never win. You never gain ground.

You don't. And you know, we have a God who plays offense all the time. He takes ground back. And so playing offense is asking questions like, how can intimacy in our marriage be greater a year from now than it is today? How can we share more of ourselves? How can we learn to look forward to being together physically?

What would be fun? Even how do we, how do we get set free from some of the things that are keeping us from enjoying this? Yeah. One of those difficulties that I've learned is, you know, especially for that woman who grew up in the church, it was no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And especially for the woman that abided in that.

Okay. No, almost to brutality, you know, and then she gets married and then she's saying, how do I flip this switch? Yeah, it's hard for a lot of women. I think some of the mess subtle messaging in the church has been more that women were supposed to be the sexual gatekeepers. Like it was assumed that men would have sexual desire and that that was going to be a difficult thing for them to steward. But women were almost told not to be sexual.

Right. And so they don't know how to awaken those desires. They don't know how to receive those desires as something that is God given and good. And for a lot of women, they need to actually go back to the scripture and look at the Song of Solomon and retrain their understanding of biblical sexuality so that not only they can say yes to their husband, but they can first even just say yes to the desire God has put within them. That is really good.

That's a great observation. 15 years into your marriage, you and Mike, you know, you had this revelation of giving it over to God. And, you know, some women right now are saying, whew, yeah, I did that at year seven.

Other women are saying, you know, I've been married 30 years. I haven't done that yet. Describe that experience and how God gave you peace about giving up control and giving up manipulation to the best of your ability. I'm sure there still is a little bit of that because we're human.

Yeah. It helps to write a book on it because you have accountability now. But it wasn't just giving up control of my marriage.

I think it was like a shift in my whole relationship with God. Women know how to work hard and they know how to work hard in marriage. Like what percentage of the marriage books do you think are purchased by women?

Probably 80, 90 percent. We're always working on our marriage, but we sometimes work the wrong way. And that's the way I was working. I read in devotional recently that talked about the difference between focusing on the fruit versus focusing on the root and how as modern Christians, we want the fruit of a good marriage. We want our husband to love us well. We want him to help with the kids. We want to be good wives that encourage him.

That's fruit. The root is what is God doing in my heart? And do I really trust that God is good? And I think I hit that wall probably about 15 years in my marriage where I realized that a lot of what I was doing was rooted in pride, thinking I knew better than my husband.

It was rooted in fear of what would happen if he made the wrong decision with this or that. And really getting to the point where I was investing in the roots of what does it look like to just want to honor the Lord? Not want to fix my husband.

Not want to fix my marriage. That's fruit. But just want to be a woman who honors the Lord. And what we see in Scripture is that when the roots are healthy, then the fruit starts to come out healthy. And it's been a joy over the last, say, 10 years or so just to see the fruit that comes from like Psalm 1 says.

It is being rooted in the Word of God, being rooted in the Spirit of God, and just letting God take care of the fruit in His own timing. Julie, there are wives listening right now who are doing all the right things, the things that you've talked about. They have given up that mega control. They've been praying for their husbands, encouraging them, but they're still not seeing fruit. It may have been months.

It might be years. How would you encourage that woman, that wife to keep going even when it's not happening? Yeah, I would say, first of all, fruit isn't always just in your marriage.

The fruit isn't that you're going to change your husband. The fruit may be very silent for a while. People are watching you. Your children are watching you. People around you are watching the witness of a woman who's faithful through difficult circumstances, a woman who is seeking wisdom and seeking wise counsel when she doesn't know what to do.

And so don't underestimate the fruit. Ultimately, God sees you. I'm not going to stand before God with my husband. I'm going to stand before Him alone. And I'm going to give account for how I stewarded everything that He's blessed me with. I'm going to give account for how I've stewarded my role as a wife and a mom.

And God sees the choices you're making to honor Him. And I'd also say, do still seek counsel. If your marriage isn't nurturing to you, you need relationships that are nurturing. You need friendships, and you need wise counselors to let you know where you draw boundaries so that you're not continually wounded in your marriage.

So there is an element of making sure that you have people around you that are helping you navigate that difficult situation. Yeah, that's so good. And Julie, man, we're out of time. Thank you so much for being here, number one. Seeing you brings us great joy again. And just seeing how the Lord is blessing your ministry to women and men. It's really good to see how God's using you. Thank you for rewriting the book, which really helped many, many people.

And let me turn to our listeners. You know, this resource is really important. It's an important book to get to have to give to friends.

If you're in a good place, I would keep your eye open with those couples in the church that you know that you know, the Lord's letting you know they're hurting. This would be that kind of book that would make a big difference in their marriage. And if you can make a donation to focus for any amount, we'll send it to you as our way of saying thank you.

And if you can do that on a monthly basis as a sustainer, that helps us even more. So consider those two ways, a one-time gift, a monthly gift, and we'll send you the book to say thank you. If you can't afford it, we'll get it to you. Just give us a call.

Don't be embarrassed. And we'll trust others. We'll cover the cost of that. Julie mentioned this earlier, but focus is here.

It is a heap and a storehouse of resources to help you in your marriage. That's our goal. Plus, we have counselors who can talk with you.

They'll probably have to call you back, but you can call and ask to talk to a counselor, and they can give you some perspective, that perspective that Julie's referring to. It's free. We're doing this to help you in the name of Christ, and the supporters supply that ability for us to do that, and I'm grateful to each and every one. So get in touch with us. We've been doing this 44 years, over 44 years.

You're not going to shock us. Yeah, and you can call to schedule a free consultation with one of our counselors. You can also donate when you get in touch, and then be sure to get a copy of Julie's book, Finding the Hero in Your Husband Revisited, Embracing Your Power in Marriage.

Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459, or click the link in the show notes. Julie, thanks again for being with us. Always my pleasure. Well, thanks for joining us these past couple of days with Dr. Slattery, and I hope you'll have a great weekend with your family and your church family as well. Join us on Monday when Pastor Mark Batterson describes why manhood, rightly understood, is something to celebrate and cultivate. A tough guy is not someone that can bloody a nose or blacken an eye.

It's someone who's willing to hang on a cross for someone else's sin. 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 was shocked when she gave me the divorce papers. I was so done.

I had reached my breaking point. I was desperate for a shred of hope. So I called the Hope Restored team at Focus on the Family. They listened to me and they asked about what was happening in my marriage. They encouraged me and my wife to attend one of their marriage intensives for couples in crisis and they prayed with us. They helped me believe that my marriage could be saved. I agreed to go but was very skeptical that anything could help us.

But the whole environment was so safe and non-judgmental. I felt my heart start to open up as we worked with the counselors. Both of us still have work to do in our marriage, but for the first time in a long time, we have hope again. Focus on the Family's Hope Restored Marriage Intensive Program has helped thousands of couples who thought that their marriage was over. Find out which program is right for you at HopeRestored.com.