August 30, 2025 • 47 mins
Marriage is a beautiful picture of how love can change the world. But every relationship has its challenges. On this summer best-of Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, discover time tested, practical insights every couple needs to thrive. How do you go from constant conflict to a joy-filled marriage? If there’s distance between you and your spouse, get encouragement on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman.
Featured resource: A SIMPLE GUIDE FOR A BETTER MARRIAGE: QUICK, PRACTICAL INSIGHTS EVERY COUPLE NEEDS TO THRIVE
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:03):
Fit widget A into slot Q and tighten screw. Okay.
S2 (00:10):
Ever wish marriage came with a set of easy instructions.
S1 (00:14):
But not too tight or the wood might crack. Oh boy.
S3 (00:22):
God uses everything in our lives to work in us,
and then ultimately work through us to help others.
S4 (00:27):
Sometimes there's a cost to unconditional love. It seeks what's
best for our spouse even when they're not interested in
our needs and our situation.
S2 (00:39):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
we present a simple guide to making marriage better from
the co-authors of a new book that just might be
the key to a relational reset.
S5 (00:56):
And on this final summer, best of broadcast building relationships,
we're going to talk about a simple guide for making
marriage better. Quick, practical insights every couple needs to thrive.
You can find that book at Building Relationships. And Gary,
I think there's going to be a fun program because
not only do we get to hear some practical help
from marriage. We get to meet a man who has
(01:17):
worked behind the scenes of your ministry for a lot
of years.
S3 (01:21):
Well, you're right, Chris. John Hinckley and I have worked together. Oh,
John might remember the exact year, but it's been a
long time. I know that, and he's helped in many,
many ways. Uh, works for Moody Publishers. And I was
really glad that he joined with me in writing this
particular book. So I'm excited about our conversation today.
S5 (01:42):
Well, let me introduce our guest, John Hinckley. He and
his wife, Chris, have been married for more than 40 years,
and they have three adult children. For the last 35 years,
he's worked for Moody Publishers in Chicago, where he currently
serves as an acquisitions editor. John and Chris live in
Northwest Indiana and served together as directors of their church's
(02:03):
counseling ministry and are featured. Resource is the book by
John and Doctor Chapman. A Simple Guide for a Better Marriage. Quick,
practical insights every couple needs to thrive. Find out more
about it at Building Relationships.
S3 (02:18):
Well, John, welcome to Building Relationships.
S4 (02:21):
Thank you. It's such a privilege and a blessing to
be on this program with you, Gary. Appreciate it.
S3 (02:28):
Yeah. We haven't done this before. We've done a lot
of conferences together, but we haven't done the radio program before,
so it's great to have you. Now, you and your wife, Chris,
have been married for more than 40 years. So take
us back to the early days. And what drew the
two of you together in the first place?
S4 (02:47):
Yeah, well, we met in college, uh, 43 years ago.
We met through a mutual friend and, uh, you know,
in our book, Gary, we talk about opposites attracting.
S3 (03:01):
Mhm.
S4 (03:02):
And from a personality standpoint, Chris and I were and
are opposites. Uh, Chris is an off the scale extrovert,
as you know, and I'm an introvert.
S3 (03:15):
She.
S4 (03:15):
She tends to be a night person. I'm a, I'm
a morning person. She can be a tad late to
meetings and things. And I'm one who likes to be
on time. She's she's much more spontaneous than me. Uh,
I tend to be that kind of that planner. And
I could go on and on, uh, about our differences.
(03:37):
But we also had a lot of things in common.
And I would say when we met, the most important
thing was that we both followed Christ and we love
the Lord. He was a high priority in our lives
as individuals. Uh, we got married the year I graduated
and started a family, and then within five years, I
began working at Moody Bible Institute for Moody Publishers, and
(04:01):
as you mentioned, we have three adult children, Megan, Andrew
and Graham. All three live close by, which is nice
for us. Uh, one's very close, and Graham is still
living in our home, and. And Andrew married the love
of his life, Kayla, last fall. That was a wonderful
time for all of us as a family. And I
(04:22):
had the tremendous privilege of officiating their wedding. It was
a great event. So. Yeah. Yeah. We love our family,
as you can tell.
S3 (04:32):
Yeah. That's great. That's great. You know, as you were
talking about all the differences between you and Chris, I
was just cataloging with you because so many of those
are true of me and Carolyn as well. The late thing,
for example, you're my idea. Being on time is to
be there 15 minutes before it starts hers. Get there
five minutes after it starts. Oh, but many couples will
(04:57):
identify with that, I think. Uh, not that everybody has, uh,
you know, uh, personality differences, but there are always some
differences in every in every couple.
S5 (05:06):
John, I want to ask you, do you remember working
on the five Love languages early on? Were you part
of that?
S4 (05:12):
I was part of it, yeah. You know, it was
Gary's third book. He had already written two books on
marriage that were good selling books. And this one came
The Five Love Languages, 1992. At the time, I was
working in the marketing area for Moody Publishers, but I
was strongly connected to the book. Uh, and one of
(05:36):
the reasons why is because we launched this book as
one of a very few in a new imprint, uh,
that Moody Publishers was developing called Northfield Publishing. Northfield was
named after the town in Massachusetts where the evangelist D.L.
(05:56):
Moody was born and raised. This imprint, Northfield, was created
so we could put moody books in the mainstream market
into into bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Books-a-million and Borders,
and B Dalton and Walden and many other mainstream stores
(06:18):
that have since become extinct. So much of books these
days are sold online, as you know. Uh, Northfield books
were based on the truth of God's Word, but they
didn't include some of the words, the vernacular that is
so common in the church. In other words, we didn't
use theological words that might become a stumbling block for
(06:42):
readers who didn't regularly go to church. So the books
were kind of considered pre evangelistic. Yes, they were designed
to open doors to readers who might become receptive to
biblical truth. The books were considered pre evangelistic, designed to
open the door to readers so that they would become
(07:04):
receptive to biblical truth and interested in exploring more in
that realm.
S5 (07:11):
Hmm. And that's exactly what has happened, isn't it, Gary?
S3 (07:15):
It is. You know, in fact, I've had people say
to me, I didn't know you were a Christian till
I got to the end of the book. And I said, oh,
that was on purpose because I wrote with non-Christians in mind.
You know, because, listen, they have the need to feel love,
just like Christians have the need to feel love. And
at the end of the book, of course, what I
(07:36):
said essentially was I'm giving you information on how to
effectively express love to your spouse. I can't give you motivation,
but I can tell you where my motivation came from.
And I give my personal experience, my relationship with God,
you know, and that God loved me. I responded to
God's love. And then the scriptures say, the love of
(07:56):
God is poured in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
So Christians have outside help in terms of having a
good marriage. But I also want to reach non-Christians with
the message. And so, yeah, it's been very, very encouraging
to see the way God has used that particular book
through the years.
S5 (08:13):
Well, I'm looking forward to this conversation about a simple
guide for a better marriage. Quick, practical insights. Every couple
needs to thrive. And here's the thing bringing 100 years
of marriage to the page. You and John teamed up.
You have 100 years of experience.
S3 (08:33):
It doesn't mean I've been married 100 years, but together
we've been married. If you count my 63 years and
her 63 years, how many is that? I'm not good
at math. 126. Okay, Carol and I had real struggles
in the early days of our marriage. I've shared those
(08:54):
sometimes on the program and I'm looking back on it.
I just feel like God led us through all those
painful years or early years, uh, because he was preparing
us for what he wanted us to be doing. You know,
later on, uh, I wouldn't have had empathy for people
if I never had any struggles in my own marriage.
You know, I'd say, what would be wrong with you folks?
Just snap out of it and have a good marriage,
(09:15):
you know? But I remember when I had those feelings of,
I don't know. I may have married the wrong person.
I mean, it's just not working. We're too different. You know,
all we're doing is arguing with each other. And, man,
I mean, those were. Those were painful times. And, uh.
But God has used all of that to give me
great empathy for people who are struggling in their own
(09:37):
marriage and a deep desire to impact those people in
a positive way and to and to bring hope, uh, to,
to their situation. Sometimes I've said in my office, to
people that say, we just don't see any hope. We
just don't know how this could ever work. And I say, well,
I can understand that, but I'd like to ask you
a question. Would you be willing to go on? My
(09:58):
hope for a while. Because I have hope for you. I've.
I've I've been where you are. And I've helped a
lot of other people who have been where you are.
And I have great hope for you. So, you know,
God uses all of our everything in our lives. I
think he uses it to to work in us and
then ultimately work through us to help others.
S6 (10:17):
Mhm. Yeah. Well said.
S4 (10:19):
I like the way you put that Chris. Uh more
than a hundred years uh hadn't really thought about that
from a marketing standpoint. But between Gary and me and
our marriage length of time, it is over 100 years
of experience and wisdom packed inside this book. Mostly, of course,
(10:40):
it's Gary's. I'm more than 6040. Obviously, it's more like 9010.
S3 (10:47):
And well, that's your perspective, John. I've said this before.
I don't think I would have written this book if
you hadn't helped me with it, so I'm very grateful
for that. Let me ask you this, John, uh, what
are some of the ministries that you and Chris, your wife,
are invested in, uh, that support healthy marriages?
S4 (11:06):
Well, I would start with my ministry with Moody and
the the privilege I have of working with you, Gary.
And in the past, some other authors who have written
with the purpose of benefiting or building up relationships, whether
(11:28):
it be marriage or family or parenting, even workplace. So
I've considered my job at Moody to be a ministry
that really is putting very impactful books into the hands
of people who, if they read them, will strengthen them,
benefit them in their relationship first and foremost with God.
(11:51):
That vertical relationship, but then also with the people in
their lives, in their homes, in their workplaces, their churches, whatnot.
So Moody has been a great ministry to be involved in. Uh,
the other ministry is our church, our local church. Chris
and I have been part of this church that we're
at for just about as long as I've been at Moody,
(12:14):
and we've served in a variety of different ministries within
the church. But for the last dozen years or so,
we have served in our church's counseling ministry. Our church
started that back in the early 2000. It's a lay
counseling ministry, peer to peer, where we have volunteers from
(12:35):
our congregation who serve, who get trained, who read books,
go to school, learn things, and then put them to
work with others within our church. But it goes way
beyond our church, to our community as well. And it
was just five years ago now that, uh, our church
asked Chris and me to come on staff and to
(12:58):
serve as the directors of this counseling ministry. Uh, part
time role here at this church. And so we have
been immersed even more in counseling from the beginning. Chris
and I kind of focused on counseling couples. That's what
we did most of. And that hasn't changed. Our ministry
has been enhanced by that fact that we're working with
(13:23):
couples that, you know, there's been a lot of overlap
between what I do here at the church and what
I do at Moody. Yeah. But anyway, at the moment,
we we serve with a team of about 20 lay counselors,
and it's been such a privilege to have men and
women who love the Lord and are really willing to
(13:44):
sacrifice time and energy to come alongside and walk well
with people who are struggling whatever place in life.
S7 (13:54):
That's fantastic.
S3 (13:54):
You know, John, I hope that our listeners who hear
what you just said and they're active in a church
that they will think in terms of, is this something
our church could do? Hmm. Because I believe there are
a lot of lay people out there that would be
open to helping other lay people, and they are studying books.
They are going to conferences, they are learning things that
(14:17):
would be helpful to others. And yet they feel like, well,
I'm not a professional, you know, I'm not a certified counselor.
So I don't I don't think I could do that. Listen,
people can help people. If you've learned some things, you
can help people. So I really appreciate what you and
Chris have done through the years here in your own church.
S5 (14:36):
And I think this is going to be one of
those resources you can hand people when they come in
for counseling. It's a simple guide for a better marriage. Quick,
practical insights every couple needs to thrive. John. Every book
has a story behind it. We talked about the five
love languages before. What's the story behind A Simple guide
for a better marriage?
S4 (14:57):
Yeah, first of all, I got to give credit where
credit is due. This is primarily Gary's book, and he's really,
in a sense, been writing it over his life. Uh,
it all started one evening when we were out in
Grants Pass, Oregon, together for a conference. He and I
went to dinner together at a at a restaurant that night,
(15:19):
and he told me about a series of articles that
he had written for a monthly magazine. It was a
rather extensive collection. Um, when he sent them to me
nearly a hundred articles on various aspects of marriage, each
article was like unpacking one facet of Gary's wisdom on marriage.
(15:42):
I was inspired by the breadth of topics that he
covered and the depth of insight, biblical knowledge, practical expertise
that was coming through in these articles. My task was
to select the best pieces out of that collection and
distill them into a book that would address some of
(16:02):
the most common and relevant challenges that couples face in
today's world. There was a lot, I have to say.
The temptation was to expand this work. It would have
been easy to make it into like an exhaustive volume
that really goes into depth on on the materials. But
(16:22):
I also wanted to ensure that the final product was accessible.
And so I distilled. Ultimately, we ended up with a
highly manageable and readable book consisting of 31 chapters that
really only take a few minutes to read, but they're
packed with substantive and actionable insights for couples.
S3 (16:47):
I think the other thing, John, that I really appreciate
is at the end of each of those chapters, you
created questions or things that they could do to apply
whatever the topic was in that chapter. So it's really,
really practical. And I am super, super excited about this book, Chris. Uh,
I think it's a readable book. Uh, you know, I've
(17:08):
found that in today's world, uh, people are not into
reading long, long, long chapters in books. At least many people,
a lot of men, especially. So these are short chapters,
but they are pointed chapters, you know, really focusing in
on aspects of a marriage that anyone can identify with.
So I really think this book has great potential for
(17:29):
helping people. I wish, I wish I could put it
in the hands of every couple in the country. That's
how I feel about it. It's it's an easy read,
but it's dealing with issues that couples will be able to. Oh, yeah,
that makes sense. Let's try that. You know, really practical
things that will will make a change in their marriage.
S7 (17:46):
Yes.
S5 (17:47):
Can you give me an example of that, Gary? The, the.
Oh yeah. I think we could implement this because you're
talking about better, making your marriage better. And that is everybody.
You know, all of our marriages can be better for
those people who are married, right?
S3 (18:02):
Yeah. Well, I think one would be the chapter on
conflicts and how to resolve conflicts, because there are many,
many people have never learned how to resolve conflicts. Uh,
every difference they have, they argue about, you know, because
he knows he's right and she knows she's right. And
one of the things I say is, listen, every couple
has conflicts because we're human. Humans don't think the same way,
(18:25):
and they don't have the same history and they don't
have the same emotions. So coming to respect the other
person as a human, you know, and say, okay, honey,
I want to hear your side. Tell me. Let me
let me try to understand where you're coming from. Learning
how to listen to that other person. You look at
the world through their eyes because they're not crazy, you know?
(18:47):
And the things they're saying are not dumb. You know,
they may sound dumb to you listen, because they have
they're unique and they're sharing their uniqueness with you. When
you're in a conflict situation, and if you listen long
enough and ask questions about where they're coming from, and
let me make sure I understand what you're saying, you
can honestly say to the person, your spouse and you say,
(19:08):
you know, honey, when we first started this, I really
did not see your position, but now I can see
I can see how you would think that, and I
can see how that makes sense. It still doesn't mean
you necessarily agree with them, but now you you can
understand them enough that you can affirm them rather than
trying to fight them and win the argument. And then
(19:29):
they listen to you with that same openness to trying
to understand your perspective. And then you can both say honestly,
you know, honey, how we see this, it makes it
makes sense. You know, it's just that we have a difference.
But how can we solve the problem? And you spend
your energy solving the problem rather than trying to win
an argument. Because if you win the argument, they lost.
(19:52):
No fun to live with a loser. So why would
you create one? You know, I mean, that one thing
could turn a lot of marriages around because I'm telling you,
there are couples have been married for years, have never
learned how to resolve conflicts. They just are insistent on
trying to convince the other person that I'm right and
you're wrong, and you're never going to get a good
(20:13):
marriage if that's your attitude. So that's that's a that's
an example of how practical the book is.
S5 (20:19):
John, tell me your perspective on conflict.
S4 (20:23):
Well, we deal with conflict in the book in a
whole section of six, I think it's six chapters. We
talk about conflict and anger and other things. And one
of the things that we say that is a bit ironic.
That may catch some readers off guard. Is that conflict
is really actually good for marriage? It's good to have
(20:46):
conflict as long as you keep your eye on the goal.
The goal isn't to eliminate differences of opinion or differences
in personality. It's about learning to work together as a
team and allowing your differences to complement each other to
lead to a greater good. So conflict is is good.
(21:06):
There is a lot that can be learned and a
lot that can be used to deepen marriage. The danger, though,
of course there's the danger, is it's not hard at
all for conflicts to escalate and become arguments. And then
you're attacking each other and building up that wall, that
(21:26):
barrier between you or fighting, fleeing from one another. So
you have to be careful. Arguments don't tend to end well,
but conflicts when handled right do tend to end well,
and a couple can actually grow closer together.
S5 (21:43):
I think that's going to be eye opening for somebody
driving down the road, and they're looking at their spouse,
or they're thinking about their spouse, husband or wife. We
fight all the time. But why? Why do we have
so much conflict that it can be actually a positive
thing in your relationship? And that's one of the great
things about this book. A Simple guide for a Better marriage.
(22:03):
Quick practical insights every couple needs to thrive. You can
find out more about it at the website. Building relationships. Again,
go to Building Relationships. John, throughout the book, you and
Gary talk about unconditional love. And that gets thrown around
(22:23):
a lot these days. I want to know from a
practical perspective, what does that mean, unconditional love.
S4 (22:30):
I think it's really demonstrating God's love in marriage. We
don't have to earn his love. He gives it to
us freely. And even when we're unlovable, you know he
loves us. He tells us in his word that he
loves us and that he wants us to emulate his love.
(22:50):
And first John 411 and 12 says, beloved, if God
so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God. If we love one another,
God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
So this is this is what it means, I think,
primarily to love unconditionally is selflessly. It's not loving the
(23:15):
other person expecting something in return. It's acting in our
spouse's best interest, even if their intention isn't for our
best interest. Even if they're selfish. Loving them in this
way unconditionally. As God loves us means loving a selfish spouse. And, um,
(23:38):
doing it in a selfless, other oriented manner. So sometimes
there's a cost to unconditional love. It seeks what's best
for our spouse, even when it costs us, even when
they're not interested in our needs and our situation.
S3 (23:55):
Yeah. I think another thing I would just throw in
there is that sometimes we feel like if I don't
feel love for them, then I don't love them. But
that's not necessarily true. You don't have to have love
feelings or positive feelings for your spouse to love them.
I mean, love is a choice. There's an emotional aspect
(24:16):
to it. But and I say this because the lady
once asked me, can you can you love your husband
if you hate him? And I had to give some
thought to that. But I think you can, you know,
you can, you can, You can be hurt and really
just feel like they're awful. But you can choose to
love them with words and deeds, you know. And if
(24:38):
you know their love language, you can speak their love language.
With God's help. Because God, as you said, John, God
loved us while we were sinners. And we can love
our spouse when they're sinners. And love's the most powerful
thing you can do for a person. And with the
help of God, you can actually be God's agent for
loving that person even when you have negative feelings for them.
(25:00):
And we can't change them, but we can influence them.
And unconditional love is the most positive influence you can
ever have on a spouse. And we can't guarantee that
they'll all turn around and come back and love you.
But I can tell you, I've seen many, many, many
times they do turn around because they know they don't
deserve the way you're loving them. And when you do
(25:22):
it over a period of time, they realize, oh man,
they're sincere. I mean, they really care about me. And
it draws them because we love God. The Bible says
because he first loved us. So that principle works in
a Christian marriage as well.
S2 (25:40):
Thanks for joining us for the Building Relationships with Doctor
Gary Chapman podcast. He's the author of the New York
Times bestseller The Five Love Languages. You can find out
more about your love language by going to five Love Languages. Com.
You can also see our featured resource, the book by
Doctor Chapman and our guest, John Hinckley. It's titled A
Simple Guide for a Better Marriage. Just go to five
(26:03):
Love languages. Com.
S5 (26:06):
John, add to what Gary was saying about unconditional love.
S4 (26:10):
Yeah, it involves asking questions, and his three questions are
the right ones that any of us as spouses should
be asking. What can I do to help you? You know,
reaching out, helping somebody, giving them service without expecting return
is one way of loving unconditionally. The second question how
(26:33):
can I make your life easier? Who doesn't want to
have an easier life? And if we can do something
to help our spouse in their lives that make things
lighter and easier for them, then that's a great way
of expressing unconditional love. And then how can I be
a better husband or wife to you? Now you're saying
(26:56):
I want to be God's person for you in this
marriage as a husband, a loving leader, as a wife,
a loving wife? I want to be an extension of
their love to you in this marriage. So I love
those three questions. And I think when you consider unconditional
love within marriage, those are the three that you should
(27:17):
start with.
S7 (27:18):
Hmm. I like that because, Gary, that gets the focus off.
S5 (27:22):
Of you and you're not making me happy. You're not
making me fulfilled. I've fallen out of love with you
and it and it emphasizes the choice. Those questions emphasize
the choice of moving toward your spouse. Right?
S3 (27:36):
Yeah. And when you do that over a period of
time and they see you're really serious, you're asking because
you want to make their life easier, you know, and
you you want they're likely to start asking you those
questions because it's never a one way relationship. Our behavior
(27:56):
affects the other person either negatively or positively. So that's
why I think it's super, super important. You know, John,
I think another area we discuss in the book is
the whole area of communication. Of course, you know, we're
talking now about loving but communication, it seems so simple
talking and listening. What what's one thing that in any
(28:17):
of these chapters that we have, because we have several
chapters on the whole thing of communication that you you
would want to share with our listeners today.
S4 (28:26):
I like the way you say communication is speaking and listening.
And I think effective communication. One thing that we stressed
in the book is that it really starts not by speaking,
but by learning to listen and to listening to more
than just the words. You know, there's there's a whole
(28:47):
set of nonverbal communication cues that happens when communication is
taking place. And so you need to be observant and
alert to other things as like what? What's behind the words.
Try to grasp what is behind the words that are
being spoken. We talk a lot about empathetic listening throughout
(29:08):
the book, and that really is something that is essential
to marriage health. What it means is it's putting yourself
in your spouse's shoes and seeing the world from their perspective.
This means that we listen deeply. We try to get
at what our spouse is thinking, feeling and believing. And
(29:30):
it means that we listen reflectively, you know? Reflective listening
is when you hear what they say, process it and
then repeat it back to them to make sure that
you understand.
S6 (29:42):
Yeah.
S4 (29:43):
That's one of the things that we say it is
imperative to good communication in marriage. But I'd also say
that the thing that strikes me in one of the
chapters is the five levels of communication. We unpack that concept.
There's five levels of communication. We have to, as spouses,
(30:03):
work hard to get beyond the third level and press
into the fourth and fifth levels. But that's really where
growth happens. The first level is hallway talk. I mean,
it's just simply greetings to one another things that you
would say to anybody. The second level is reporter talk,
and that's where you talk about the facts. like the who, what, when, where, why?
(30:26):
Facts of the situation. Again, we talked to most people
at that level. The third level is when you get
into intellectual talk and sharing thoughts and ideas with one another,
but it's at this level where you can actually begin
to build or develop intellectual intimacy with your spouse. For men,
(30:48):
those first three levels, they're pretty easy. However, when we
move up to the fourth and fifth level, sometimes for
some men, I would include myself in that it gets
a little uncomfortable. The fourth level is emotional talk, and
that's where we talk about our feelings opening up to
what we're feeling and our emotions, which can be a
(31:09):
little bit scary sometimes, especially for men. It's not easy
to identify emotions or feelings. There is an app out
there called How We Feel that's been useful for this purpose.
And and really it's something that you can use if
you're stuck and don't know how to describe a feeling
that you have. It can help with that. But the
(31:29):
fifth and highest level of communication is called genuine truth talk.
And that's when you're being honest and not condemning and
you're being open, not demanding. At this level, a couple
can cultivate spiritual intimacy. It's where they are free to
speak the truth in love, like Ephesians 415 says, which says,
(31:53):
speaking the truth in love we grow. We are to
grow up in every way into him who is the
head into Christ. So greater intimacy is developed through communication.
And communication happens on five levels, and we're encouraging spouses
to move up that ladder and to work at developing
(32:15):
each level. It can be a sequential thing, and it's
not that somebody's going to jump in and do all
five at once, but they can learn to share their emotions.
And as they do that, it opens the door for
speaking the truth, really getting to the heart of things.
And really, when we're talking about communication, understanding the heart
(32:38):
is so important.
S3 (32:40):
Yeah. You know, John, I encounter many couples who say,
you know, we just never talk much except about logistics.
You know, who's going to pick up the kids at
school and what stress her and you want to go to.
And one of the things we deal with in the
book is just learning how to ask questions. You know, simple,
just simple daily things. For example, tell me something that
(33:03):
happened today that you really enjoyed. Oh well, tell me
something that happened today that was really hard for you. Yeah.
Or if you could relive today, uh, is there anything
you'd do differently? Just questions that people don't even think
about asking. And we list a lot of these in
the book. And and the other thing is just getting
(33:25):
to know each other. You know, sometimes we've been married
20 or 30 years. We don't ever talk about our past.
But what if you ask questions about honey? What do
you remember about elementary school? Or, you know, what were
the positive points about your father or your mother? Or
what were the negative points? Just getting to know each other.
(33:47):
Because if we ask questions about their history and things
that they've gone, they're looking back and we're interested. The
fact that we ask questions shows we're interested. It's amazing
what things you can learn about each other. Marriage is
about sharing life with each other. So in questioning is
a big part of that. So that whole communication thing,
(34:08):
I think we have 4 or 5 chapters on that,
that whole area.
S7 (34:12):
So I love it.
S5 (34:14):
It's going to be helpful. And I'm listening to this
as as a man who has my whole life tried
to not feel anything, you know, it's like I don't
want to. I want you ask me how I feel
about something. I don't want to feel anything. It's it's
it's threatening to me. And I saw this video the
other day of a man. He looks like he's in
(34:34):
his late 40s, maybe 50s, and he's just standing. Just
sitting out back. This probably is an actor doing this, uh,
because then the teaching comes on after that. So it's
probably an actor, but the the fellas, uh, his wife
comes out and says, what are you doing? And he said,
I'm just I'm just sitting here thinking about this, this
(34:55):
spool of wire when we were first married. This thing
was full, you know, it was a full spool of wire,
but now there's only a little bit left. You know,
I'm going to have to get another spool of wire.
And I was just thinking about, you know, he's he's
trying to communicate something deep. And she says, oh, that's
(35:16):
I don't remember what she says. He says that's dumb
or whatever, you know, just. And he gets up and
walks away. He gets up because he. He shuts down.
He's sharing something from deep inside as he's just sitting
out there. And that can happen on either side for
the husband, or the wife can shut down the feelings
of the other person. And and you don't want to
(35:38):
do that, right, Gary?
S3 (35:40):
Yeah, yeah. Tell me about it. Yeah. So he says
something that doesn't make any sense to you at all,
but rather than saying, well, that's that's stupid or I
don't know what you're talking about. Well, tell me about
it and ask questions. They've got something on their mind
when they say something you don't understand. If you ask questions,
you'll learn where they are and where they're coming from.
(36:02):
This whole thing, you know, the scriptures say that a
husband and wife are to become one flesh. I mean,
it's deep, deep intimacy. You know, it's sharing life on
every possible level. And that's where the marriage really finds
its meaning. When you have that sense that we're we're connected.
Communication is a big part of that. I mean, listening
(36:23):
and talking about all kind of things and sharing life
with each other and emotions with each other, all that
exceedingly important.
S5 (36:31):
All right. Let's get really, really practical for somebody who's
listening today. And there's some pressure in your marriage. Uh,
you're married to somebody who works all the time. There's
financial stress in your marriage. There's stress with the kids. Uh,
how can couples manage those challenges without having them damage
(36:51):
their relationship? John. You first.
S6 (36:53):
Ah.
S4 (36:54):
I think when couples keep their priorities in alignment with
God's design, I think that is one of the ways
that they can tackle these challenges. And, um, really, it
starts with putting God first. God always needs to be
at the center of marriage in all of life and
relationships for that matter. We often use an equilateral triangle
(37:19):
that's one that has the same length on all sides.
To illustrate the principle of keeping God at the center
of marriage. He's actually at the top of this triangle
at the apex, and the husband and wife are at
the bottom two corners. The triangle teaches us that as
both husband and wife move closer to God, they're moving
(37:42):
up the triangle, up the sides toward God. Their relationship
is not only growing closer to him, but it's also
growing closer to one another. So the closer a couple
gets in their relationship with God, the deeper and more
meaningful their relationship is. Husband and wife are. So we
encourage couples to put God first, press into God, grow
(38:05):
in your knowledge of him, your faith and trust in him,
your love for him, and obedience as well. And then
second to God comes to marriage. Your spouse. After your
relationship with God, your marriage needs to be the second
highest priority. That means the love of a husband for
his wife and a wife's love for her husband should
(38:26):
be the most intimate human relationship. And then children come
after that, their third. If the couple has children, they
become that next priority. And making time is essential here.
Oftentimes it's it's the easiest thing to neglect, especially when
other pressures in life begin to mount. And for husbands,
(38:49):
I know it's it's easy to say, hey, my work
is what provides income and that's what provides good health
and well-being for my family. That's why I have to
give work such a high priority. And there is some
truth to that. But, you know, financial security does not
necessarily equal relational security. I'm sure you've heard the old
(39:10):
adage that on a deathbed, you never hear somebody say, boy,
I wish I would just have spent more time focusing
on my work. It's always their family. So ultimately, investing
time in growing and nurturing your family and the Lord
is far more valuable than work. And then fourth, after
that would come career and finances. Some might even put
(39:34):
church into this fourth bucket. Regardless, couples need to resist
the temptation to put that level higher than the other three.
It's something that's sometimes the easiest one to to elevate,
but it must always stay in its proper position there
after God and family.
S3 (39:56):
And I certainly agree with that, John. I think, you know,
if we have the sense that we have 18 years
with our children, for example, and then they're going to
be moving on for the most part, not always, but
for the most part, whatever we're going to do, the
kind of relationship we're going to build, it has to
be built during those 18 years, and it's either going
(40:17):
to be positive, it's going to be negative, and sometimes
it's just that we just don't take time with our kids,
you know. And so I remember when my kids were
little and I of course, I could control my schedule.
I was I was on a pastoral staff. So I
would go home every afternoon at 3:00 and just be
there with the kids when they came home from school,
spend some time helping them with their homework if they
(40:39):
needed it, and then playing games with them and all
that sort of thing, you know? But we we all
have the same amount of time. It's just we choose
how we're going to spend it, and we can allow
things to pull us away from the things that are
most important. You know, I think if a couple could
have a daily sit down time and I know this
can be hard if you have 2 or 3 children
(41:01):
or sometimes people have more than that. But even if
it's 15 minutes just to sit down time every day,
just like we do with God, at least I hope
you have that kind of time with God. We sit
down with God. We sit down with each other and say, honey,
tell me three things or 2 or 3 things that
happened today and how you feel about them. And they
just share. They can be simple things. They can be
(41:23):
positive things. They can be negative things. It's just something
that happened and how you feel about it. We're just
sharing life together. We're walking through life together. And what
I would also encourage, and I do this at all
of my marriage conferences, is that a couple share one
book every year on marriage with each other. And here's
what I mean by share. You each read the same
(41:45):
chapter and then you say, what could we learn from
this chapter? And this is a great book to do
that way because it's 31 chapters on 31 important issues.
If each of you reads that chapter and then you say,
what can we learn from that chapter? I predict that
by the time you finish that, you are going to
(42:07):
be growing you throughout the whole thing. You're going to
be growing in your marriage. And I just say, you know,
do that the rest of your life. One book every year,
you share one book every year on marriage with with
each other. It's just a practical way of continuing to
grow because the book is an outside voice talking about
a particular aspect of marriage and giving you a chance
(42:30):
to respond to that voice. And you can disagree, or
you can agree with the voice, but at least you're
discussing that concept with your with your spouse. So that's
one of my suggestions. And one of my hopes for
this book is that couples will use it because it's,
as we said earlier, it's an easy read. It's geared
toward being practical, and I think any couple, whatever their background,
(42:54):
will profit a lot as they work through this book. Well, John,
as we know, a lot of people buy books on Amazon.
So let me ask you this. What messages would you
like to see on Amazon about this book? What is
your hope.
S4 (43:08):
Amazon comments are, of course, very important. I'd love to
see somebody on Amazon say they read the book, and
it revolutionized the way they view their marriage and gave
them some practical guidance and advice that really made a difference. And,
(43:29):
you know, marriages are either growing or they're regressing. They're
never standing still. It's vital that we be about growth.
My hope is that this book stimulates growth and maturity
in couples, individuals as as they really prioritize their relationship.
(43:50):
I also would want to see that it would deepen
their relationship with God. As mentioned before, you know, focus
on their personal relationship with Jesus first. I would hope
that it would prompt some people to do that and
then that that would lead a couple together to a
mutual relationship with God, where they are working together on
(44:14):
their spiritual lives through the spiritual disciplines and reading God's
Word together and discussing that and praying together. You know,
I think that praying together is so important. You can't
overstate the positive impact of it. One study says that
couples who pray regularly together have a divorce rate of
(44:34):
less than 1%. So I'd hope that this book stimulates
prayer among couples and that if they've never read the
five love languages, this includes a chapter on the love languages.
And I would hope that it would turn on some
lights for them, and then encourage them to take the
next step of by the book and read it and
(44:55):
understand it even more, and then maybe take the next
step and buy the five Love Languages premium assessment for
husband and wife. And really dive deeply into understanding the
love languages and on the. On the flip side of that,
the last thing I'll say is I would hope that
they would say that the apology languages is a concept
(45:20):
that is deeply meaningful for them. When you damage your
relationship in some way, it's very important that you understand
your spouse's apology language and offer an apology that's meaningful
to them immediately in the process. Hopefully, then they would
forgive you for whatever it is that that you did.
(45:42):
So that's my hope. I'd love to see some five
star reviews, but, um, if that happens, what I just mentioned,
then I'd be very happy.
S6 (45:53):
Yeah.
S3 (45:54):
Well, John, I've told you this before. I really appreciate
you joining me in writing this book, and I'm excited
about the possibility of what you just shared really happening
in people's lives. And I want to also thank you
for being with us today on building relationships.
S4 (46:08):
Thank you. It's been a wonderful privilege to be with you.
S5 (46:13):
And if you want to find out more about this
excellent resource, go to Building Relationships. Again, the title is
a simple guide for making marriage better. Quick, practical insights
every couple needs to thrive. Just go to building relationships.
Next week, our new season of programs begins, and if
you or someone you know has experienced trauma of some sort,
(46:36):
don't miss that conversation next week.
S2 (46:39):
A big thank you to our production team Steve Wick,
Janice backing, and Merle Saint James. Building relationships with Doctor
Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association
with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks
for listening.
Fit widget A into slot Q and tighten screw. Okay.
S2 (00:10):
Ever wish marriage came with a set of easy instructions.
S1 (00:14):
But not too tight or the wood might crack. Oh boy.
S3 (00:22):
God uses everything in our lives to work in us,
and then ultimately work through us to help others.
S4 (00:27):
Sometimes there's a cost to unconditional love. It seeks what's
best for our spouse even when they're not interested in
our needs and our situation.
S2 (00:39):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
we present a simple guide to making marriage better from
the co-authors of a new book that just might be
the key to a relational reset.
S5 (00:56):
And on this final summer, best of broadcast building relationships,
we're going to talk about a simple guide for making
marriage better. Quick, practical insights every couple needs to thrive.
You can find that book at Building Relationships. And Gary,
I think there's going to be a fun program because
not only do we get to hear some practical help
from marriage. We get to meet a man who has
(01:17):
worked behind the scenes of your ministry for a lot
of years.
S3 (01:21):
Well, you're right, Chris. John Hinckley and I have worked together. Oh,
John might remember the exact year, but it's been a
long time. I know that, and he's helped in many,
many ways. Uh, works for Moody Publishers. And I was
really glad that he joined with me in writing this
particular book. So I'm excited about our conversation today.
S5 (01:42):
Well, let me introduce our guest, John Hinckley. He and
his wife, Chris, have been married for more than 40 years,
and they have three adult children. For the last 35 years,
he's worked for Moody Publishers in Chicago, where he currently
serves as an acquisitions editor. John and Chris live in
Northwest Indiana and served together as directors of their church's
(02:03):
counseling ministry and are featured. Resource is the book by
John and Doctor Chapman. A Simple Guide for a Better Marriage. Quick,
practical insights every couple needs to thrive. Find out more
about it at Building Relationships.
S3 (02:18):
Well, John, welcome to Building Relationships.
S4 (02:21):
Thank you. It's such a privilege and a blessing to
be on this program with you, Gary. Appreciate it.
S3 (02:28):
Yeah. We haven't done this before. We've done a lot
of conferences together, but we haven't done the radio program before,
so it's great to have you. Now, you and your wife, Chris,
have been married for more than 40 years. So take
us back to the early days. And what drew the
two of you together in the first place?
S4 (02:47):
Yeah, well, we met in college, uh, 43 years ago.
We met through a mutual friend and, uh, you know,
in our book, Gary, we talk about opposites attracting.
S3 (03:01):
Mhm.
S4 (03:02):
And from a personality standpoint, Chris and I were and
are opposites. Uh, Chris is an off the scale extrovert,
as you know, and I'm an introvert.
S3 (03:15):
She.
S4 (03:15):
She tends to be a night person. I'm a, I'm
a morning person. She can be a tad late to
meetings and things. And I'm one who likes to be
on time. She's she's much more spontaneous than me. Uh,
I tend to be that kind of that planner. And
I could go on and on, uh, about our differences.
(03:37):
But we also had a lot of things in common.
And I would say when we met, the most important
thing was that we both followed Christ and we love
the Lord. He was a high priority in our lives
as individuals. Uh, we got married the year I graduated
and started a family, and then within five years, I
began working at Moody Bible Institute for Moody Publishers, and
(04:01):
as you mentioned, we have three adult children, Megan, Andrew
and Graham. All three live close by, which is nice
for us. Uh, one's very close, and Graham is still
living in our home, and. And Andrew married the love
of his life, Kayla, last fall. That was a wonderful
time for all of us as a family. And I
(04:22):
had the tremendous privilege of officiating their wedding. It was
a great event. So. Yeah. Yeah. We love our family,
as you can tell.
S3 (04:32):
Yeah. That's great. That's great. You know, as you were
talking about all the differences between you and Chris, I
was just cataloging with you because so many of those
are true of me and Carolyn as well. The late thing,
for example, you're my idea. Being on time is to
be there 15 minutes before it starts hers. Get there
five minutes after it starts. Oh, but many couples will
(04:57):
identify with that, I think. Uh, not that everybody has, uh,
you know, uh, personality differences, but there are always some
differences in every in every couple.
S5 (05:06):
John, I want to ask you, do you remember working
on the five Love languages early on? Were you part
of that?
S4 (05:12):
I was part of it, yeah. You know, it was
Gary's third book. He had already written two books on
marriage that were good selling books. And this one came
The Five Love Languages, 1992. At the time, I was
working in the marketing area for Moody Publishers, but I
was strongly connected to the book. Uh, and one of
(05:36):
the reasons why is because we launched this book as
one of a very few in a new imprint, uh,
that Moody Publishers was developing called Northfield Publishing. Northfield was
named after the town in Massachusetts where the evangelist D.L.
(05:56):
Moody was born and raised. This imprint, Northfield, was created
so we could put moody books in the mainstream market
into into bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Books-a-million and Borders,
and B Dalton and Walden and many other mainstream stores
(06:18):
that have since become extinct. So much of books these
days are sold online, as you know. Uh, Northfield books
were based on the truth of God's Word, but they
didn't include some of the words, the vernacular that is
so common in the church. In other words, we didn't
use theological words that might become a stumbling block for
(06:42):
readers who didn't regularly go to church. So the books
were kind of considered pre evangelistic. Yes, they were designed
to open doors to readers who might become receptive to
biblical truth. The books were considered pre evangelistic, designed to
open the door to readers so that they would become
(07:04):
receptive to biblical truth and interested in exploring more in
that realm.
S5 (07:11):
Hmm. And that's exactly what has happened, isn't it, Gary?
S3 (07:15):
It is. You know, in fact, I've had people say
to me, I didn't know you were a Christian till
I got to the end of the book. And I said, oh,
that was on purpose because I wrote with non-Christians in mind.
You know, because, listen, they have the need to feel love,
just like Christians have the need to feel love. And
at the end of the book, of course, what I
(07:36):
said essentially was I'm giving you information on how to
effectively express love to your spouse. I can't give you motivation,
but I can tell you where my motivation came from.
And I give my personal experience, my relationship with God,
you know, and that God loved me. I responded to
God's love. And then the scriptures say, the love of
(07:56):
God is poured in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
So Christians have outside help in terms of having a
good marriage. But I also want to reach non-Christians with
the message. And so, yeah, it's been very, very encouraging
to see the way God has used that particular book
through the years.
S5 (08:13):
Well, I'm looking forward to this conversation about a simple
guide for a better marriage. Quick, practical insights. Every couple
needs to thrive. And here's the thing bringing 100 years
of marriage to the page. You and John teamed up.
You have 100 years of experience.
S3 (08:33):
It doesn't mean I've been married 100 years, but together
we've been married. If you count my 63 years and
her 63 years, how many is that? I'm not good
at math. 126. Okay, Carol and I had real struggles
in the early days of our marriage. I've shared those
(08:54):
sometimes on the program and I'm looking back on it.
I just feel like God led us through all those
painful years or early years, uh, because he was preparing
us for what he wanted us to be doing. You know,
later on, uh, I wouldn't have had empathy for people
if I never had any struggles in my own marriage.
You know, I'd say, what would be wrong with you folks?
Just snap out of it and have a good marriage,
(09:15):
you know? But I remember when I had those feelings of,
I don't know. I may have married the wrong person.
I mean, it's just not working. We're too different. You know,
all we're doing is arguing with each other. And, man,
I mean, those were. Those were painful times. And, uh.
But God has used all of that to give me
great empathy for people who are struggling in their own
(09:37):
marriage and a deep desire to impact those people in
a positive way and to and to bring hope, uh, to,
to their situation. Sometimes I've said in my office, to
people that say, we just don't see any hope. We
just don't know how this could ever work. And I say, well,
I can understand that, but I'd like to ask you
a question. Would you be willing to go on? My
(09:58):
hope for a while. Because I have hope for you. I've.
I've I've been where you are. And I've helped a
lot of other people who have been where you are.
And I have great hope for you. So, you know,
God uses all of our everything in our lives. I
think he uses it to to work in us and
then ultimately work through us to help others.
S6 (10:17):
Mhm. Yeah. Well said.
S4 (10:19):
I like the way you put that Chris. Uh more
than a hundred years uh hadn't really thought about that
from a marketing standpoint. But between Gary and me and
our marriage length of time, it is over 100 years
of experience and wisdom packed inside this book. Mostly, of course,
(10:40):
it's Gary's. I'm more than 6040. Obviously, it's more like 9010.
S3 (10:47):
And well, that's your perspective, John. I've said this before.
I don't think I would have written this book if
you hadn't helped me with it, so I'm very grateful
for that. Let me ask you this, John, uh, what
are some of the ministries that you and Chris, your wife,
are invested in, uh, that support healthy marriages?
S4 (11:06):
Well, I would start with my ministry with Moody and
the the privilege I have of working with you, Gary.
And in the past, some other authors who have written
with the purpose of benefiting or building up relationships, whether
(11:28):
it be marriage or family or parenting, even workplace. So
I've considered my job at Moody to be a ministry
that really is putting very impactful books into the hands
of people who, if they read them, will strengthen them,
benefit them in their relationship first and foremost with God.
(11:51):
That vertical relationship, but then also with the people in
their lives, in their homes, in their workplaces, their churches, whatnot.
So Moody has been a great ministry to be involved in. Uh,
the other ministry is our church, our local church. Chris
and I have been part of this church that we're
at for just about as long as I've been at Moody,
(12:14):
and we've served in a variety of different ministries within
the church. But for the last dozen years or so,
we have served in our church's counseling ministry. Our church
started that back in the early 2000. It's a lay
counseling ministry, peer to peer, where we have volunteers from
(12:35):
our congregation who serve, who get trained, who read books,
go to school, learn things, and then put them to
work with others within our church. But it goes way
beyond our church, to our community as well. And it
was just five years ago now that, uh, our church
asked Chris and me to come on staff and to
(12:58):
serve as the directors of this counseling ministry. Uh, part
time role here at this church. And so we have
been immersed even more in counseling from the beginning. Chris
and I kind of focused on counseling couples. That's what
we did most of. And that hasn't changed. Our ministry
has been enhanced by that fact that we're working with
(13:23):
couples that, you know, there's been a lot of overlap
between what I do here at the church and what
I do at Moody. Yeah. But anyway, at the moment,
we we serve with a team of about 20 lay counselors,
and it's been such a privilege to have men and
women who love the Lord and are really willing to
(13:44):
sacrifice time and energy to come alongside and walk well
with people who are struggling whatever place in life.
S7 (13:54):
That's fantastic.
S3 (13:54):
You know, John, I hope that our listeners who hear
what you just said and they're active in a church
that they will think in terms of, is this something
our church could do? Hmm. Because I believe there are
a lot of lay people out there that would be
open to helping other lay people, and they are studying books.
They are going to conferences, they are learning things that
(14:17):
would be helpful to others. And yet they feel like, well,
I'm not a professional, you know, I'm not a certified counselor.
So I don't I don't think I could do that. Listen,
people can help people. If you've learned some things, you
can help people. So I really appreciate what you and
Chris have done through the years here in your own church.
S5 (14:36):
And I think this is going to be one of
those resources you can hand people when they come in
for counseling. It's a simple guide for a better marriage. Quick,
practical insights every couple needs to thrive. John. Every book
has a story behind it. We talked about the five
love languages before. What's the story behind A Simple guide
for a better marriage?
S4 (14:57):
Yeah, first of all, I got to give credit where
credit is due. This is primarily Gary's book, and he's really,
in a sense, been writing it over his life. Uh,
it all started one evening when we were out in
Grants Pass, Oregon, together for a conference. He and I
went to dinner together at a at a restaurant that night,
(15:19):
and he told me about a series of articles that
he had written for a monthly magazine. It was a
rather extensive collection. Um, when he sent them to me
nearly a hundred articles on various aspects of marriage, each
article was like unpacking one facet of Gary's wisdom on marriage.
(15:42):
I was inspired by the breadth of topics that he
covered and the depth of insight, biblical knowledge, practical expertise
that was coming through in these articles. My task was
to select the best pieces out of that collection and
distill them into a book that would address some of
(16:02):
the most common and relevant challenges that couples face in
today's world. There was a lot, I have to say.
The temptation was to expand this work. It would have
been easy to make it into like an exhaustive volume
that really goes into depth on on the materials. But
(16:22):
I also wanted to ensure that the final product was accessible.
And so I distilled. Ultimately, we ended up with a
highly manageable and readable book consisting of 31 chapters that
really only take a few minutes to read, but they're
packed with substantive and actionable insights for couples.
S3 (16:47):
I think the other thing, John, that I really appreciate
is at the end of each of those chapters, you
created questions or things that they could do to apply
whatever the topic was in that chapter. So it's really,
really practical. And I am super, super excited about this book, Chris. Uh,
I think it's a readable book. Uh, you know, I've
(17:08):
found that in today's world, uh, people are not into
reading long, long, long chapters in books. At least many people,
a lot of men, especially. So these are short chapters,
but they are pointed chapters, you know, really focusing in
on aspects of a marriage that anyone can identify with.
So I really think this book has great potential for
(17:29):
helping people. I wish, I wish I could put it
in the hands of every couple in the country. That's
how I feel about it. It's it's an easy read,
but it's dealing with issues that couples will be able to. Oh, yeah,
that makes sense. Let's try that. You know, really practical
things that will will make a change in their marriage.
S7 (17:46):
Yes.
S5 (17:47):
Can you give me an example of that, Gary? The, the.
Oh yeah. I think we could implement this because you're
talking about better, making your marriage better. And that is everybody.
You know, all of our marriages can be better for
those people who are married, right?
S3 (18:02):
Yeah. Well, I think one would be the chapter on
conflicts and how to resolve conflicts, because there are many,
many people have never learned how to resolve conflicts. Uh,
every difference they have, they argue about, you know, because
he knows he's right and she knows she's right. And
one of the things I say is, listen, every couple
has conflicts because we're human. Humans don't think the same way,
(18:25):
and they don't have the same history and they don't
have the same emotions. So coming to respect the other
person as a human, you know, and say, okay, honey,
I want to hear your side. Tell me. Let me
let me try to understand where you're coming from. Learning
how to listen to that other person. You look at
the world through their eyes because they're not crazy, you know?
(18:47):
And the things they're saying are not dumb. You know,
they may sound dumb to you listen, because they have
they're unique and they're sharing their uniqueness with you. When
you're in a conflict situation, and if you listen long
enough and ask questions about where they're coming from, and
let me make sure I understand what you're saying, you
can honestly say to the person, your spouse and you say,
(19:08):
you know, honey, when we first started this, I really
did not see your position, but now I can see
I can see how you would think that, and I
can see how that makes sense. It still doesn't mean
you necessarily agree with them, but now you you can
understand them enough that you can affirm them rather than
trying to fight them and win the argument. And then
(19:29):
they listen to you with that same openness to trying
to understand your perspective. And then you can both say honestly,
you know, honey, how we see this, it makes it
makes sense. You know, it's just that we have a difference.
But how can we solve the problem? And you spend
your energy solving the problem rather than trying to win
an argument. Because if you win the argument, they lost.
(19:52):
No fun to live with a loser. So why would
you create one? You know, I mean, that one thing
could turn a lot of marriages around because I'm telling you,
there are couples have been married for years, have never
learned how to resolve conflicts. They just are insistent on
trying to convince the other person that I'm right and
you're wrong, and you're never going to get a good
(20:13):
marriage if that's your attitude. So that's that's a that's
an example of how practical the book is.
S5 (20:19):
John, tell me your perspective on conflict.
S4 (20:23):
Well, we deal with conflict in the book in a
whole section of six, I think it's six chapters. We
talk about conflict and anger and other things. And one
of the things that we say that is a bit ironic.
That may catch some readers off guard. Is that conflict
is really actually good for marriage? It's good to have
(20:46):
conflict as long as you keep your eye on the goal.
The goal isn't to eliminate differences of opinion or differences
in personality. It's about learning to work together as a
team and allowing your differences to complement each other to
lead to a greater good. So conflict is is good.
(21:06):
There is a lot that can be learned and a
lot that can be used to deepen marriage. The danger, though,
of course there's the danger, is it's not hard at
all for conflicts to escalate and become arguments. And then
you're attacking each other and building up that wall, that
(21:26):
barrier between you or fighting, fleeing from one another. So
you have to be careful. Arguments don't tend to end well,
but conflicts when handled right do tend to end well,
and a couple can actually grow closer together.
S5 (21:43):
I think that's going to be eye opening for somebody
driving down the road, and they're looking at their spouse,
or they're thinking about their spouse, husband or wife. We
fight all the time. But why? Why do we have
so much conflict that it can be actually a positive
thing in your relationship? And that's one of the great
things about this book. A Simple guide for a Better marriage.
(22:03):
Quick practical insights every couple needs to thrive. You can
find out more about it at the website. Building relationships. Again,
go to Building Relationships. John, throughout the book, you and
Gary talk about unconditional love. And that gets thrown around
(22:23):
a lot these days. I want to know from a
practical perspective, what does that mean, unconditional love.
S4 (22:30):
I think it's really demonstrating God's love in marriage. We
don't have to earn his love. He gives it to
us freely. And even when we're unlovable, you know he
loves us. He tells us in his word that he
loves us and that he wants us to emulate his love.
(22:50):
And first John 411 and 12 says, beloved, if God
so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God. If we love one another,
God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
So this is this is what it means, I think,
primarily to love unconditionally is selflessly. It's not loving the
(23:15):
other person expecting something in return. It's acting in our
spouse's best interest, even if their intention isn't for our
best interest. Even if they're selfish. Loving them in this
way unconditionally. As God loves us means loving a selfish spouse. And, um,
(23:38):
doing it in a selfless, other oriented manner. So sometimes
there's a cost to unconditional love. It seeks what's best
for our spouse, even when it costs us, even when
they're not interested in our needs and our situation.
S3 (23:55):
Yeah. I think another thing I would just throw in
there is that sometimes we feel like if I don't
feel love for them, then I don't love them. But
that's not necessarily true. You don't have to have love
feelings or positive feelings for your spouse to love them.
I mean, love is a choice. There's an emotional aspect
(24:16):
to it. But and I say this because the lady
once asked me, can you can you love your husband
if you hate him? And I had to give some
thought to that. But I think you can, you know,
you can, you can, You can be hurt and really
just feel like they're awful. But you can choose to
love them with words and deeds, you know. And if
(24:38):
you know their love language, you can speak their love language.
With God's help. Because God, as you said, John, God
loved us while we were sinners. And we can love
our spouse when they're sinners. And love's the most powerful
thing you can do for a person. And with the
help of God, you can actually be God's agent for
loving that person even when you have negative feelings for them.
(25:00):
And we can't change them, but we can influence them.
And unconditional love is the most positive influence you can
ever have on a spouse. And we can't guarantee that
they'll all turn around and come back and love you.
But I can tell you, I've seen many, many, many
times they do turn around because they know they don't
deserve the way you're loving them. And when you do
(25:22):
it over a period of time, they realize, oh man,
they're sincere. I mean, they really care about me. And
it draws them because we love God. The Bible says
because he first loved us. So that principle works in
a Christian marriage as well.
S2 (25:40):
Thanks for joining us for the Building Relationships with Doctor
Gary Chapman podcast. He's the author of the New York
Times bestseller The Five Love Languages. You can find out
more about your love language by going to five Love Languages. Com.
You can also see our featured resource, the book by
Doctor Chapman and our guest, John Hinckley. It's titled A
Simple Guide for a Better Marriage. Just go to five
(26:03):
Love languages. Com.
S5 (26:06):
John, add to what Gary was saying about unconditional love.
S4 (26:10):
Yeah, it involves asking questions, and his three questions are
the right ones that any of us as spouses should
be asking. What can I do to help you? You know,
reaching out, helping somebody, giving them service without expecting return
is one way of loving unconditionally. The second question how
(26:33):
can I make your life easier? Who doesn't want to
have an easier life? And if we can do something
to help our spouse in their lives that make things
lighter and easier for them, then that's a great way
of expressing unconditional love. And then how can I be
a better husband or wife to you? Now you're saying
(26:56):
I want to be God's person for you in this
marriage as a husband, a loving leader, as a wife,
a loving wife? I want to be an extension of
their love to you in this marriage. So I love
those three questions. And I think when you consider unconditional
love within marriage, those are the three that you should
(27:17):
start with.
S7 (27:18):
Hmm. I like that because, Gary, that gets the focus off.
S5 (27:22):
Of you and you're not making me happy. You're not
making me fulfilled. I've fallen out of love with you
and it and it emphasizes the choice. Those questions emphasize
the choice of moving toward your spouse. Right?
S3 (27:36):
Yeah. And when you do that over a period of
time and they see you're really serious, you're asking because
you want to make their life easier, you know, and
you you want they're likely to start asking you those
questions because it's never a one way relationship. Our behavior
(27:56):
affects the other person either negatively or positively. So that's
why I think it's super, super important. You know, John,
I think another area we discuss in the book is
the whole area of communication. Of course, you know, we're
talking now about loving but communication, it seems so simple
talking and listening. What what's one thing that in any
(28:17):
of these chapters that we have, because we have several
chapters on the whole thing of communication that you you
would want to share with our listeners today.
S4 (28:26):
I like the way you say communication is speaking and listening.
And I think effective communication. One thing that we stressed
in the book is that it really starts not by speaking,
but by learning to listen and to listening to more
than just the words. You know, there's there's a whole
(28:47):
set of nonverbal communication cues that happens when communication is
taking place. And so you need to be observant and
alert to other things as like what? What's behind the words.
Try to grasp what is behind the words that are
being spoken. We talk a lot about empathetic listening throughout
(29:08):
the book, and that really is something that is essential
to marriage health. What it means is it's putting yourself
in your spouse's shoes and seeing the world from their perspective.
This means that we listen deeply. We try to get
at what our spouse is thinking, feeling and believing. And
(29:30):
it means that we listen reflectively, you know? Reflective listening
is when you hear what they say, process it and
then repeat it back to them to make sure that
you understand.
S6 (29:42):
Yeah.
S4 (29:43):
That's one of the things that we say it is
imperative to good communication in marriage. But I'd also say
that the thing that strikes me in one of the
chapters is the five levels of communication. We unpack that concept.
There's five levels of communication. We have to, as spouses,
(30:03):
work hard to get beyond the third level and press
into the fourth and fifth levels. But that's really where
growth happens. The first level is hallway talk. I mean,
it's just simply greetings to one another things that you
would say to anybody. The second level is reporter talk,
and that's where you talk about the facts. like the who, what, when, where, why?
(30:26):
Facts of the situation. Again, we talked to most people
at that level. The third level is when you get
into intellectual talk and sharing thoughts and ideas with one another,
but it's at this level where you can actually begin
to build or develop intellectual intimacy with your spouse. For men,
(30:48):
those first three levels, they're pretty easy. However, when we
move up to the fourth and fifth level, sometimes for
some men, I would include myself in that it gets
a little uncomfortable. The fourth level is emotional talk, and
that's where we talk about our feelings opening up to
what we're feeling and our emotions, which can be a
(31:09):
little bit scary sometimes, especially for men. It's not easy
to identify emotions or feelings. There is an app out
there called How We Feel that's been useful for this purpose.
And and really it's something that you can use if
you're stuck and don't know how to describe a feeling
that you have. It can help with that. But the
(31:29):
fifth and highest level of communication is called genuine truth talk.
And that's when you're being honest and not condemning and
you're being open, not demanding. At this level, a couple
can cultivate spiritual intimacy. It's where they are free to
speak the truth in love, like Ephesians 415 says, which says,
(31:53):
speaking the truth in love we grow. We are to
grow up in every way into him who is the
head into Christ. So greater intimacy is developed through communication.
And communication happens on five levels, and we're encouraging spouses
to move up that ladder and to work at developing
(32:15):
each level. It can be a sequential thing, and it's
not that somebody's going to jump in and do all
five at once, but they can learn to share their emotions.
And as they do that, it opens the door for
speaking the truth, really getting to the heart of things.
And really, when we're talking about communication, understanding the heart
(32:38):
is so important.
S3 (32:40):
Yeah. You know, John, I encounter many couples who say,
you know, we just never talk much except about logistics.
You know, who's going to pick up the kids at
school and what stress her and you want to go to.
And one of the things we deal with in the
book is just learning how to ask questions. You know, simple,
just simple daily things. For example, tell me something that
(33:03):
happened today that you really enjoyed. Oh well, tell me
something that happened today that was really hard for you. Yeah.
Or if you could relive today, uh, is there anything
you'd do differently? Just questions that people don't even think
about asking. And we list a lot of these in
the book. And and the other thing is just getting
(33:25):
to know each other. You know, sometimes we've been married
20 or 30 years. We don't ever talk about our past.
But what if you ask questions about honey? What do
you remember about elementary school? Or, you know, what were
the positive points about your father or your mother? Or
what were the negative points? Just getting to know each other.
(33:47):
Because if we ask questions about their history and things
that they've gone, they're looking back and we're interested. The
fact that we ask questions shows we're interested. It's amazing
what things you can learn about each other. Marriage is
about sharing life with each other. So in questioning is
a big part of that. So that whole communication thing,
(34:08):
I think we have 4 or 5 chapters on that,
that whole area.
S7 (34:12):
So I love it.
S5 (34:14):
It's going to be helpful. And I'm listening to this
as as a man who has my whole life tried
to not feel anything, you know, it's like I don't
want to. I want you ask me how I feel
about something. I don't want to feel anything. It's it's
it's threatening to me. And I saw this video the
other day of a man. He looks like he's in
(34:34):
his late 40s, maybe 50s, and he's just standing. Just
sitting out back. This probably is an actor doing this, uh,
because then the teaching comes on after that. So it's
probably an actor, but the the fellas, uh, his wife
comes out and says, what are you doing? And he said,
I'm just I'm just sitting here thinking about this, this
(34:55):
spool of wire when we were first married. This thing
was full, you know, it was a full spool of wire,
but now there's only a little bit left. You know,
I'm going to have to get another spool of wire.
And I was just thinking about, you know, he's he's
trying to communicate something deep. And she says, oh, that's
(35:16):
I don't remember what she says. He says that's dumb
or whatever, you know, just. And he gets up and
walks away. He gets up because he. He shuts down.
He's sharing something from deep inside as he's just sitting
out there. And that can happen on either side for
the husband, or the wife can shut down the feelings
of the other person. And and you don't want to
(35:38):
do that, right, Gary?
S3 (35:40):
Yeah, yeah. Tell me about it. Yeah. So he says
something that doesn't make any sense to you at all,
but rather than saying, well, that's that's stupid or I
don't know what you're talking about. Well, tell me about
it and ask questions. They've got something on their mind
when they say something you don't understand. If you ask questions,
you'll learn where they are and where they're coming from.
(36:02):
This whole thing, you know, the scriptures say that a
husband and wife are to become one flesh. I mean,
it's deep, deep intimacy. You know, it's sharing life on
every possible level. And that's where the marriage really finds
its meaning. When you have that sense that we're we're connected.
Communication is a big part of that. I mean, listening
(36:23):
and talking about all kind of things and sharing life
with each other and emotions with each other, all that
exceedingly important.
S5 (36:31):
All right. Let's get really, really practical for somebody who's
listening today. And there's some pressure in your marriage. Uh,
you're married to somebody who works all the time. There's
financial stress in your marriage. There's stress with the kids. Uh,
how can couples manage those challenges without having them damage
(36:51):
their relationship? John. You first.
S6 (36:53):
Ah.
S4 (36:54):
I think when couples keep their priorities in alignment with
God's design, I think that is one of the ways
that they can tackle these challenges. And, um, really, it
starts with putting God first. God always needs to be
at the center of marriage in all of life and
relationships for that matter. We often use an equilateral triangle
(37:19):
that's one that has the same length on all sides.
To illustrate the principle of keeping God at the center
of marriage. He's actually at the top of this triangle
at the apex, and the husband and wife are at
the bottom two corners. The triangle teaches us that as
both husband and wife move closer to God, they're moving
(37:42):
up the triangle, up the sides toward God. Their relationship
is not only growing closer to him, but it's also
growing closer to one another. So the closer a couple
gets in their relationship with God, the deeper and more
meaningful their relationship is. Husband and wife are. So we
encourage couples to put God first, press into God, grow
(38:05):
in your knowledge of him, your faith and trust in him,
your love for him, and obedience as well. And then
second to God comes to marriage. Your spouse. After your
relationship with God, your marriage needs to be the second
highest priority. That means the love of a husband for
his wife and a wife's love for her husband should
(38:26):
be the most intimate human relationship. And then children come
after that, their third. If the couple has children, they
become that next priority. And making time is essential here.
Oftentimes it's it's the easiest thing to neglect, especially when
other pressures in life begin to mount. And for husbands,
(38:49):
I know it's it's easy to say, hey, my work
is what provides income and that's what provides good health
and well-being for my family. That's why I have to
give work such a high priority. And there is some
truth to that. But, you know, financial security does not
necessarily equal relational security. I'm sure you've heard the old
(39:10):
adage that on a deathbed, you never hear somebody say, boy,
I wish I would just have spent more time focusing
on my work. It's always their family. So ultimately, investing
time in growing and nurturing your family and the Lord
is far more valuable than work. And then fourth, after
that would come career and finances. Some might even put
(39:34):
church into this fourth bucket. Regardless, couples need to resist
the temptation to put that level higher than the other three.
It's something that's sometimes the easiest one to to elevate,
but it must always stay in its proper position there
after God and family.
S3 (39:56):
And I certainly agree with that, John. I think, you know,
if we have the sense that we have 18 years
with our children, for example, and then they're going to
be moving on for the most part, not always, but
for the most part, whatever we're going to do, the
kind of relationship we're going to build, it has to
be built during those 18 years, and it's either going
(40:17):
to be positive, it's going to be negative, and sometimes
it's just that we just don't take time with our kids,
you know. And so I remember when my kids were
little and I of course, I could control my schedule.
I was I was on a pastoral staff. So I
would go home every afternoon at 3:00 and just be
there with the kids when they came home from school,
spend some time helping them with their homework if they
(40:39):
needed it, and then playing games with them and all
that sort of thing, you know? But we we all
have the same amount of time. It's just we choose
how we're going to spend it, and we can allow
things to pull us away from the things that are
most important. You know, I think if a couple could
have a daily sit down time and I know this
can be hard if you have 2 or 3 children
(41:01):
or sometimes people have more than that. But even if
it's 15 minutes just to sit down time every day,
just like we do with God, at least I hope
you have that kind of time with God. We sit
down with God. We sit down with each other and say, honey,
tell me three things or 2 or 3 things that
happened today and how you feel about them. And they
just share. They can be simple things. They can be
(41:23):
positive things. They can be negative things. It's just something
that happened and how you feel about it. We're just
sharing life together. We're walking through life together. And what
I would also encourage, and I do this at all
of my marriage conferences, is that a couple share one
book every year on marriage with each other. And here's
what I mean by share. You each read the same
(41:45):
chapter and then you say, what could we learn from
this chapter? And this is a great book to do
that way because it's 31 chapters on 31 important issues.
If each of you reads that chapter and then you say,
what can we learn from that chapter? I predict that
by the time you finish that, you are going to
(42:07):
be growing you throughout the whole thing. You're going to
be growing in your marriage. And I just say, you know,
do that the rest of your life. One book every year,
you share one book every year on marriage with with
each other. It's just a practical way of continuing to
grow because the book is an outside voice talking about
a particular aspect of marriage and giving you a chance
(42:30):
to respond to that voice. And you can disagree, or
you can agree with the voice, but at least you're
discussing that concept with your with your spouse. So that's
one of my suggestions. And one of my hopes for
this book is that couples will use it because it's,
as we said earlier, it's an easy read. It's geared
toward being practical, and I think any couple, whatever their background,
(42:54):
will profit a lot as they work through this book. Well, John,
as we know, a lot of people buy books on Amazon.
So let me ask you this. What messages would you
like to see on Amazon about this book? What is
your hope.
S4 (43:08):
Amazon comments are, of course, very important. I'd love to
see somebody on Amazon say they read the book, and
it revolutionized the way they view their marriage and gave
them some practical guidance and advice that really made a difference. And,
(43:29):
you know, marriages are either growing or they're regressing. They're
never standing still. It's vital that we be about growth.
My hope is that this book stimulates growth and maturity
in couples, individuals as as they really prioritize their relationship.
(43:50):
I also would want to see that it would deepen
their relationship with God. As mentioned before, you know, focus
on their personal relationship with Jesus first. I would hope
that it would prompt some people to do that and
then that that would lead a couple together to a
mutual relationship with God, where they are working together on
(44:14):
their spiritual lives through the spiritual disciplines and reading God's
Word together and discussing that and praying together. You know,
I think that praying together is so important. You can't
overstate the positive impact of it. One study says that
couples who pray regularly together have a divorce rate of
(44:34):
less than 1%. So I'd hope that this book stimulates
prayer among couples and that if they've never read the
five love languages, this includes a chapter on the love languages.
And I would hope that it would turn on some
lights for them, and then encourage them to take the
next step of by the book and read it and
(44:55):
understand it even more, and then maybe take the next
step and buy the five Love Languages premium assessment for
husband and wife. And really dive deeply into understanding the
love languages and on the. On the flip side of that,
the last thing I'll say is I would hope that
they would say that the apology languages is a concept
(45:20):
that is deeply meaningful for them. When you damage your
relationship in some way, it's very important that you understand
your spouse's apology language and offer an apology that's meaningful
to them immediately in the process. Hopefully, then they would
forgive you for whatever it is that that you did.
(45:42):
So that's my hope. I'd love to see some five
star reviews, but, um, if that happens, what I just mentioned,
then I'd be very happy.
S6 (45:53):
Yeah.
S3 (45:54):
Well, John, I've told you this before. I really appreciate
you joining me in writing this book, and I'm excited
about the possibility of what you just shared really happening
in people's lives. And I want to also thank you
for being with us today on building relationships.
S4 (46:08):
Thank you. It's been a wonderful privilege to be with you.
S5 (46:13):
And if you want to find out more about this
excellent resource, go to Building Relationships. Again, the title is
a simple guide for making marriage better. Quick, practical insights
every couple needs to thrive. Just go to building relationships.
Next week, our new season of programs begins, and if
you or someone you know has experienced trauma of some sort,
(46:36):
don't miss that conversation next week.
S2 (46:39):
A big thank you to our production team Steve Wick,
Janice backing, and Merle Saint James. Building relationships with Doctor
Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association
with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks
for listening.
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