September 13, 2025 • 49 mins
Ann spent more than a decade longing for a better marriage, trying to get her husband to be more attentive, more involved, and more helpful. On this Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, Ann and Dave Wilson believe no matter how long you’ve been married, things can be different. The good news is, you have the power to change. Hear the marriage encouragement on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman.
Featured resource: How to Speak Life to Your Husband: When All You Want to Do Is Yell at Him
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S1 (00:00):
If you want your husband to be more attentive, more involved,
more loving, but all you can do is yell at him.
Don't miss today's Building Relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman.
S2 (00:11):
The truth is, I seldom cheered for Dave because I
thought he doesn't need that. Everybody else is telling him
all these great things, not knowing that my words were
some of the most powerful words in his life.
S3 (00:23):
When your wife, who sees all the the good and
the bad and the ugly, says, I'm with you and
I believe in you. Oh that's powerful. God has given
wives that power.
S1 (00:37):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
co-hosts of Family Life Today, Dave and Ann Wilson will
give marriage changing advice for wives.
S4 (00:51):
And the advice is not to yell louder. No, there's
a better way. And you're going to hear about it
today if you go to Building Relationships. Our are featured resource.
Right there is the book written by Ann Wilson along
with her husband, Dave. How to speak life to your husband.
When all you want to do is yell at him,
just go to building relationships. And Gary, you have said
(01:12):
through the years that when a marriage is in trouble
or there's a struggle, there's somebody has to be the
first to make a change. And often that's the wife
who sees that the marriage is not what it could be.
S5 (01:24):
Well, I think that's true, Chris. Not always. Sometimes it
is the husband. But I I've experienced that. More likely
than not, it's going to be the wife, you know,
who says, I've got to have help, I've got to
do something, you know, and she may reach out to
a counselor or talk to him about going for counseling
and that sort of thing. So I am really, really
excited about our talk today with Dave and Ann, because
I think this book is going to help a lot
(01:46):
of wives and husbands for that matter.
S4 (01:49):
I do too. Let's meet if you haven't met him before.
Ann and Dave Wilson, best selling authors, former co-founders of
Kensington Church. Former chaplains for the Detroit Lions. They now
serve as FamilyLife today radio and podcast hosts as nationally
known Speakers on marriage as well. Ann and Dave have
been married for more than 40 years, and they have
three grown sons, a multitude of grandchildren. And if you
(02:12):
go to building relationships, you'll see the featured resource how
to speak life to your husband when all you want
to do is yell at him and just go to
building relationships.
S5 (02:22):
Well, Dave and Ann, welcome back to Building Relationships.
S3 (02:26):
We are glad to be with you.
S2 (02:28):
We always love being with you, Gary.
S5 (02:30):
Well, Ann, talk about that dynamic of a wife realizing
that there's more to marriage and wanting things to change.
Do you think it's more often the wife than the
husband that what Chris was asking me that wants to
change or takes initiative.
S2 (02:45):
From what we've seen and experienced, because we've been speaking
at conferences for over 35 years and generally speaking, not always,
but generally. Yes. And I think part of that is
because we as women tend to be more locked into
the relationships around the home. And what I've seen, especially
in our relationship, is Dave. He's kind of, um, he's
(03:07):
more aware outside of his career of what's going on Ministry.
S3 (03:11):
Now be nice.
S2 (03:12):
I am being nice, but it seems like I'm the
one that is kind of like noticing and the things
at home that maybe or even the relationship of what
could be better.
S3 (03:21):
I mean, Gary, you might remember, uh, in our first book,
Vertical Marriage, I thought on our ten year anniversary, our
marriage was a ten. I thought we were great. And
I found out on that date. She said, we're not
even a one. We're a minus five.
S2 (03:34):
No, I said a 0.5.
S3 (03:36):
So I think women really are much more intense. They
know what's going on.
S5 (03:44):
Well, in the in the opening of your book, you
talk about how criticism affected your own marriage. So tell
us what happened.
S2 (03:52):
Yeah. And here's what has happened. Like every marriage has,
as you guys all know, and your listeners probably do too.
Every marriage has peaks and valleys. And Dave and I
have gone through some valleys. But at this phase of
our marriage, back when we were probably married between 15
and 20 years, it's just a busy stage of life.
(04:12):
Kids in school, you're running all over the place. And
one of the things that happened was I was asked
to come to speak to a women's group at our
Church of Young Moms. And so I was so busy,
I said, Dave, you should come with me. The women
will love it. You're the pastor. If you come, they're
going to love it. So we get up there and
Dave starts just going off on things that I had
never heard him share in our lives, in our marriage.
(04:35):
And he says, women, I don't even know if you
understand what it's like for us as guys, because usually
we have someone, a parent, a mom or a dad,
somebody saying good job when we're little. Hey, you're good
at that. And then we get older and we find
out what we're passionate about, what we're good at, and
we have a coach or a teacher saying, good job.
You're great. And he said, I played college football, so
(04:56):
on Saturdays I have people cheering for me in the stands,
he said. And then I meet Ann and basically she says,
of all the men in the world, I choose you.
Dave Wilson, you're the man, and she's cheering for me. And, Gary,
I'm sitting on this stool in the back thinking, huh?
I've never heard him share any of this. That's so interesting.
But then he drops this bomb, and he his tone
(05:20):
shifts and he gets quieter, and he says, but then
when we've been married a while, it feels like when
we walk in the door, at the end of the day,
all we hear is boo boo. And I'm like, wait,
what just happened?
S3 (05:36):
I mean, Gary, when I said that, I look over
at her, she's on the stool behind me and I'm like,
I am a dead man. I have never said this
to her. I'm saying it to a couple hundred women
and she doesn't even. And we get in the car
and she's like, you think I boo you? I am
helping you.
S2 (05:52):
I honestly thought, I see all these things about you
and I can see what needs to be fixed and
help you to be better. And I honestly and I
truly think most women feel the same. We see these
things and we think, oh, I could help you to
be better if you change this and you don't do
this and you say it like this. And so I
(06:12):
said to him, like, Dave, I am helping you. And
he said, do you think it's working? And I said, no,
it's not working. That's why I have to say it
so often. And he said, all I know is this.
And it feels like you are always trying to tweak me,
fix me, help me, change me. You compare me to
(06:33):
other people, other dads, other men. He goes, I just
feel like you don't really like me. Who? And that
was big. When I got home, I went before God
and I said, first of all, I vented to God,
which is okay to do, like, Lord, can you believe that?
But then I asked him that question like God, do
you think I boo Dave and I felt this confirmation
(06:55):
in my spirit of start paying attention to your thoughts
and start paying attention to your words and Gary. The
truth is, I seldom cheered for Dave because I thought
he doesn't need that. Everybody else is telling him all
these great things, not knowing that my words were some
of the most powerful words in his life.
S5 (07:14):
Wow. I have an idea that some couples listening to
us right now are identifying with what you're saying. Now,
the title of your book uses the phrase speak life.
What does that look like? Practically?
S2 (07:32):
Hmm. Well, Proverbs 1821 says, the tongue has the power
of life and death. And then Proverbs 1624 says, gracious
words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing
to the bones. And those are pretty graphic Terms and words.
(07:52):
And I really think what happens when we speak words
of affirmation, words of gratitude, words of thankfulness, words of.
And this is true for anybody in our homes, our families,
words that build up rather than tear down, that brings
the soul life. And it feels good, doesn't it?
S5 (08:13):
Absolutely.
S3 (08:14):
Yeah. And you know, Gary, I can add you know,
she the books sort of a memoir.
S2 (08:19):
It's my memoir.
S3 (08:20):
Because it's sort of this journey that it wasn't just
an we both went on and it didn't change in
a day or a week or even a month over years.
She is my greatest cheerleader. It's it's amazing. There isn't
a day that goes by in my life that she
doesn't speak life and affirmation and belief in me. And
when she first started doing it, I just looked at
(08:42):
her like, you don't really think I'm a good husband.
You just said I am. But you don't think that
you've never said that before. So I didn't believe it.
But over the years it's like, oh my goodness, she
really thinks I'm a good man. And it motivates me
to be even a better man because critique and discouragement
doesn't motivate, you know, encouragement and affirmation does. And at
(09:03):
the same time, we are not saying you don't speak
truth because there are times you need to say some
hard things. But if that's all you're saying, he all
he hears is boo. But if you're speaking life and
affirmation and belief, and then you have to come in
and say, hey, there's something I need to say that
you're not going to like, but I need to say it.
He's going to receive that and it's going to make
him a better man.
S2 (09:22):
But we still need to package it in a way
that our spouse can hear it. Like our words shouldn't
be demeaning or name calling. We still have to do
it in a way that honors the other person.
S5 (09:33):
Yeah. So why doesn't nagging or yelling at your husband
achieve a desirable result?
S2 (09:42):
Yeah, why doesn't it, Dave?
S3 (09:44):
I mean, you're the expert, Gary. I mean, it's just
it it demotivates. Yeah. I mean, and thought and we
talked to so many wives that feel the same thing.
It's like if if I prod him, it's going to,
it's going to make him say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
step up and do what she asked.
S2 (10:02):
That I'll show you. I'll show you. That's what I thought. Oh,
he's going to get motivated like a coach. Oh, I'll
show you, coach.
S3 (10:08):
And it just didn't work that way. And I found,
especially at that time of our marriage, that I was
spending a lot more time away from the home than
in the home. And again, I'm not blaming him, but
I felt like out there, they think I'm good. I
come home and she thinks I'm bad. I'll say, see
you later. I'm going back to preaching. I'm going back
to leading this Bible study. And nobody says no in ministry.
(10:31):
They all want you to to serve. And so I
found that I was running away from home. I'll tell
you what, I am running home now because she believes
in me and she speaks life to me, and she
thanks me. And it goes both ways. Women aren't motivated
by criticism either. It's. just the way we're wired. It's
like speak life. And that will bring life to the
person you're speaking life to.
S2 (10:52):
And Gary, this is so embarrassing, but I've talked to
some friends and other women too. And if you would
have asked me and why didn't you speak words of
life and encourage Dave, what I would have said was
because I don't want him to think I'm satisfied with
where we are right now. If he hears me say, hey,
you're a great man, or you're good or whatever, I'll
(11:12):
think he'll think I'm satisfied, and then he'll remain where
he is, or get lazier and not try to be better.
It's so counterintuitive and so wrong in that thinking, because
think about that. I just feel like there's an enemy, too,
that wants us to speak death. Words like you're not
good enough, you're not measuring up. And this is our
(11:35):
best friend. This is our partner. If anybody should be
lavished with words of life and affirmation, it should be
the people that we're living with under the same roof.
S5 (11:45):
And I want to ask you, did you really yell
at Dave?
S3 (11:49):
Yeah she did. I'll answer that for her. She could
be a feisty, feisty girl.
S2 (11:57):
Okay, you guys, I didn't think I was yelling, I
thought I was, I thought I was, like, motivating or
being passionate. I, I don't think I yelled that much,
but you probably heard it as that. But you know what, Gary?
I don't think some women do yell. I think they
bottle it up inside. But it's interesting. At the Barber Institute,
(12:17):
they say that researchers studied a person's way of being,
which means like the energy or the feel that they
give off, that people actually instinctively feel and respond to
your way of being toward them more than your behaviors
or your words.
S3 (12:36):
So she definitely had a way of being and, you know,
a roll of the eyes, you know, a dismissal. And
I do the same thing. We've all done it, but
it's it's just as powerful as a word. Just a look,
you know, like, I'm disappointed in you again.
S2 (12:53):
And I thought I was being very sophisticated in kind
of my motive. I call it motivation. He would call
it booing. I would say things like, wow, you know,
I just talked to Paula today and you know that
Steve is reading the Bible to his kids every single night.
S3 (13:10):
That always works when you compare your husband to another
husband that really motivates you.
S2 (13:15):
And you know what Dave said? Well, Mary, maybe you
should just have married Steve. Too bad I'm not as
great as him.
S5 (13:23):
Oh well. And a big part of the book is
for wives to recognize negative communication patterns and then replace
criticism with encouragement. Yeah. Can you give us an example
of that from your own marriage?
S2 (13:38):
Yeah. I felt like when I started paying attention to
my thoughts about Dave, and it really does start there.
It starts. And Romans 12 two tells us that it says,
do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind. And so I was
asking God like, Lord, my thoughts about Dave are super negative. Like,
(14:00):
I can remember folding the laundry and we're all learning
so much now about brain science. And we know that
we create neurological pathways and the pathway that I had
created about Dave. It's a same old conversation. I get
in a rut and I start complaining about him in
my mind. He's not home. He's never home. Everything is
(14:21):
more important than me. He's on his device. Um, he
gives more energy outside the home than inside the home.
He's not leading spiritually. I mean, the list just kept
going on, and I would get in that spiritual rut
of thinking those negative things. One time I was folding clothes,
and I felt God impress me of saying, what would
happen if you prayed for him as much as you
(14:42):
complained about him. And so I think and Paul tells us,
take every thought captive. And so I started trying to
do that, like, and I started with this very simple thing.
I thought, okay, I'm going to start just by thanking Dave,
seeing the things that he is right. And this became
my prayer. Jesus, show me the greatness in Dave.
S3 (15:04):
Yeah, I can tell you, one night I came home
late after preaching and being on the sideline with the Lions.
So a long weekend. And I just said to her
as I was crawling into bed, you know, I've been
getting a lot of critiques lately about my sermons, and
I really was just ready to go back to sleep.
And I'll never forget how she responded. It was so
different than what I had previously expected.
S2 (15:28):
Well, that's because I'm a verbal processor, so if I
think it, I generally would say it. But I also
felt like God gave me some other instructions. I felt
like he was saying and ask me a few questions
before you say anything. First of all, ask this question,
and I think this is helpful maybe for your listeners too.
Should I say this? And so it's this quick prayer, Lord,
(15:50):
should I say it? And then the next prayer. And
then I felt like I should say, and Lord, here's
my next prayer. Is now the time and how should
I say it, if anything? And so when Dave said,
I feel like I've been getting these critiques, here was
my prayer. Lord, should I say what I thought? Which
was here was my thought. If you would spend more
time studying the scriptures, I think your sermons would be
(16:11):
way better. So I say, God, should I say that? No.
And then I said, should I say anything right now?
And this thought popped into my mind. And so this
is what I said. I said, wow, Dave, I can't
imagine what it's like to be you. You have thousands
of people dependent on your walk with God. That must
(16:33):
be an incredibly weighty thing for you to carry every
single day. And then there was silence. and then he
pulls me over to himself and he whispers in my ear,
you are my life. Oh, and that's that's the power
of one. You're bringing God into it. Saying a quick
prayer and it takes a second, a quick prayer. And
(16:54):
yet God can bring us together instead of saying, well,
if you just spend more time studying the scriptures, that
would have been terrible.
S3 (17:02):
And I also think it it just displays the power
that God has given women and given wives. Mhm. You
know those words from a, a wife to a man.
They're powerful. Somebody else says that to me. It's I
smile and say thank you. But when your wife who
sees all the, the good and the bad and the ugly, says,
I'm with you and I believe in you. Oh that's powerful.
(17:25):
God has given wives that power.
S4 (17:27):
I gotta ask you then, Dave. What? Because that's a
hallmark moment. It's like I can see that. I can
see that in a movie somewhere. Or in a romance novel.
You are my life. But what was it that allowed
you to get to that place of the heart where
you're struggling with, you know, the negative feedback that you've gotten?
(17:47):
She says that it and that was speaking life to you.
How did you reciprocate then and and move that back
to her?
S3 (17:56):
Well, you know, it's interesting. In that moment, I didn't think, hey,
I'm gonna grab her and say, you are my life.
You know, I just did because her words. And really,
I think the fact that she's my partner, she she
sees behind the curtain.
S2 (18:14):
She gets me.
S3 (18:15):
What I, what I carry and others don't. And so
I think for husbands in some ways for us to
help our wives is, is we need to be vulnerable
with our struggles, with our weakness, with our fears. I
think sometimes we put up this mask of, I'm, you know,
I'm a man and I've got this figured out and
I got it all together and we don't And we're scared.
(18:37):
And we're, you know, in some ways we're little boys
that still are saying, hey, do you see me? Am
I doing a good job? And so when we let
down that guard to our wives and say, you know,
here's something I'm struggling with, or here's a fear I have.
It lets them in like, oh my goodness, he needs me.
I need her. And so I think for men put
down that, that, that, that facade or that shield and
(19:00):
be vulnerable and honest with your wife and she will
be drawn to you, not pushed away by you. She'll
be like, he needs me. And we try to act
like we don't need anybody and we need Jesus first
of all. But he also created us in a way.
We need community. We need other people, first of all,
our spouse and then others. I need men in my life.
She needs women in her life. We need couples in
(19:21):
our life.
S2 (19:22):
And I think many men don't tell their wives what
they're feeling in terms of like, Dave had never told
me that he feels like I boo him, but had
he come to me and said, Ann, I feel like
I'm failing you. it feels like you're not happy. And
it makes me want to pull away because I feel
like I'm continually failing and letting you down. I think
(19:43):
if he would have said that and we could have
had a deeper like, and if he said, it feels
like you're I'm feeling discouraged by your words and I
don't know what to do about that.
S3 (19:53):
And part of me thinks, you know, looking back, I
was afraid to do that with her because it was
so intimate. But to do it on a stage with
a couple other women, that was easy. And I shouldn't
have done it that way. But that's how I came out,
and it's because I think I was afraid it's easier
to do that on a stage than it is in
your kitchen.
S6 (20:12):
Mhm. Yeah.
S5 (20:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Well you know, and maybe you've answered this
question but how do you make that shift internally. You
know the wife is you know has that pattern. Is
it a process to see that you're feeling something negative
and you want to yell or criticize and you somehow
then turn and go a different direction?
S2 (20:33):
Yeah. The first thing I had to do is. And
I feel like this is a daily thing where I
have to be in full submission and surrender to Jesus.
I have to be in his word because that transforms me,
transforms my mind and who he is, who God is.
Because he is the one that is the ultimate one
that fills me up, not Dave. Because as soon as
I take my eyes off of Jesus, I want Dave
(20:55):
to fill me up and make me happy. And his.
That's not his job. And it's not his job to
meet all of my needs. And I've tried to change him, Gary,
and I can't. But I know that that's Jesus's job.
And so what happened is that prayer that I started praying. God,
show me the greatness in Dave. Can I tell you
that God will answer that prayer? And so here's an example.
(21:19):
Before I was seeing all the negative because I created
that that negative neurological pathway. And now I'm asking God,
renew my mind, change my mind, change my eyes. Let
me see the greatness. So this one night he goes
in and one of our big complaints was I had
an expectation of what it should look like for him
to lead spiritually. Our sons. And I'd complain about that
(21:40):
all the time. So and he doesn't. He didn't even
grow up with a dad in the house. He didn't
even or in the church. He didn't even know what
that looked like. So I prayed that prayer. Show me
the greatness of what Dave's doing, right? He goes in
and prays with the boys one night and I'm watching them,
and he comes out of the room. I said, man,
I'm so jealous of the power that you carry. And
(22:01):
he said, what do you mean? I said, you go
in there and these boys are clinging to every word
you say. I go in there and there's bedlam and
chaos going on. But with those three boys, they're clinging
to you. You have this power. I don't think you
even understand. And it's so funny because the next night,
guess where he was again?
S3 (22:20):
I was running up the stairs, you know, and she
didn't say that to manipulate me, to get me up there,
but I, I realized, oh, my goodness, I'm I'm pretty
good at this. I have a different way to lead
spiritually than she sort of thought it would look like.
But she's starting to realize, oh, that's how he leads
and it works. And so it motivated me as a man.
(22:41):
Rather the criticism I withdrew. I didn't even go in
the room. I was like, yeah, I'm not very good
at this. I'm not doing it the way she wants.
I'll watch ESPN, you know? But when she said that,
I can tell you where I was standing in the
hallway when she said those words, I'm like, wow, that, that,
that that transforms a man.
S2 (22:59):
And Gary, you can probably tell what Dave's love language is.
Words of affirmation.
S6 (23:05):
Yes.
S5 (23:06):
Yes. Well, talk to the wife who who has said today. Maybe.
I just can't believe he did that. Everything in her
wants to scream. And here you're saying that that moment
can actually help the two of you connect?
S2 (23:25):
Yeah.
S5 (23:26):
Talk to her.
S6 (23:28):
Well.
S2 (23:29):
I felt like that probably 3032 times a day. That
same that same feeling. And I think as wives, we
have to gauge of when we should say things and
when we should wait or if we shouldn't even say anything.
And I think that's an issue. I remember thinking, I'm
so bugged by this, he's driving me crazy. Or I've
asked him to do this 930 times. And I think
(23:53):
our walk with God, this sounds such like a pat answer,
but I have to be in God's Word, as I
said before, and that begins to change my eyes. And
so my prayer was, Lord, if I should say anything
to Dave, bring it up again tomorrow. But when I react,
and that's what I would say if if he's doing
something and you just yell at him or say something,
(24:14):
or you have a way of being about him that
he can feel. Try not to react in the moment.
Because if you give yourself a little time, you say
a quick little prayer of Lord, give me wisdom, which
James says he will give generously. Say a prayer, Lord,
give me wisdom. Should I say anything? Maybe you go
and talk to God about it. Maybe you have a
really close girlfriend who loves Jesus and you're like, can
(24:37):
you pray with me about this? I need to know
if I should say it, how I should say it.
Because you know this, Gary, you've heard it with the
John Gottman there Institute that it takes five positives to
negate one negative. And so I think we just have
to fill each other's tanks up with positive, so that
if we're going to make a deposit or a withdrawal
(25:00):
of a negative, we still wrap it in love and
we can say it but think through, how should I
say this? And how can he hear it in a
way that he really does get what I'm communicating?
S1 (25:16):
This is the building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman podcast,
and Wilson has written our featured resource today along with
her husband, Dave. It's titled How to Speak Life to
Your Husband when all you want to do is yell
at him. Find out more at building relationships. Find out.
Find out more at Five Love languages.com. Plus, you can
take a free assessment of your love language there and
(25:39):
see what Gary is coming to your area for a seminar.
Just go to five Love Languages. Com.
S5 (25:46):
And I think what you're sharing and Dave is sharing
is going to help a lot of our listeners today. Uh,
I'll talk about the unspoken feelings and the deeper issues
that are often behind, uh, you know, under the surface
of conflicts that couples have. Can can a couple deal
with those kind of things without going to a counselor
(26:08):
or a pastor, uh, to guide them?
S2 (26:11):
I think a counselor can really be helpful. They've helped
us in the past.
S3 (26:16):
Oh, definitely. Definitely.
S2 (26:18):
But we've also learned now and we've I think it's
really important to know each other's stories, to know the
wounds and the hurts that have happened growing up, and
Dave and I both went to a counselor, and I've
had some real wounds that were glaring that I had
never really dealt with.
S3 (26:35):
And mine were even bigger.
S2 (26:37):
Yeah. And we didn't know that those things were bleeding
into our day to day relationship. And so I think
it's really important to share your story, because when you
share your entire story, the good and the bad with
your spouse, what I realized was one, I'm a perfectionist,
so I want my marriage and I want Dave to
be perfect. Yep. And also, I had some wounds in
(26:59):
the past with that. I felt like I wasn't seen
by my parents. They didn't know what was going on.
I have sexual abuse that wasn't dealt with. And and
so I put so many things on Dave thinking that
he could heal some of those wounds. And if you
have an area in your marriage, a cycle that keeps
(27:19):
coming back up of the same fight. Ours was always,
Do you see me? Why aren't you home? Why aren't
I a priority? And those were the things that I
felt growing up. And so they just were bleeding into.
S3 (27:33):
And, you know, behind the curtain in my life is,
you know, I was raised by two alcoholic parents. Adultery affairs.
They got divorced when I was seven, and I didn't
realize it. But I brought into our marriage this drive
to show my dad or anybody. I'm. I can be good.
I can be successful. And so then I there I am,
(27:53):
I'm driving to start a church, not just a church.
It's got to be a megachurch. And I'm not just
a chaplain. I'm chaplain of the losing team in the NFL.
So I gotta, you know, be with the Lions. But
I mean, we're laughing, but I really was, you know,
driven outside the home to be successful and sort of
leaving Anne to take care of the home on her own,
(28:15):
not even realizing she has this desire to be seen.
And I'm not seeing her. So that, I mean, that
was a that was a setup for a marriage that's
going to crumble. Jesus saved our marriage. And again, sitting
down with a Christian counselor who can help you identify
some of the luggage that you bring into your marriage.
You got a process that if you don't process it
(28:35):
in a in a healing way, it can destroy your marriage.
And so I think it's really important to have community
and a counselor and a good church, so you can
navigate that with others.
S6 (28:47):
Yeah.
S5 (28:48):
So powerful. I think when you have another voice that's
listening and helping you share, you know, those things and
identify them. You're right.
S6 (28:56):
Yeah.
S5 (28:58):
So you talk about the power of thought and how
what you think shapes your behavior towards your spouse. Are
there practical exercises for couples to to get out of
the negative patterns?
S2 (29:11):
Yeah, it's I think this is interesting. There's a doctor,
Helen Fisher, who works with brain scans to study happily
married couples. So she studied couples that had been married
more than 20 years, and both the husband and the
wife said they were madly in love. And what she
did was she studied three areas of the brain, and
(29:32):
one area is responsible for a phenomena called positive illusion,
focusing on what you like about your spouse. I thought
this was fascinating because there's also a negative illusion that
all you see is the negative. And I talked about
that a little bit, but I think that we can
(29:52):
train our brains. And so when Paul says to take
every thought captive, if I would get in my cycle
of starting to meditate on Dave's negatives, I would say, Jesus,
I'm not going to go there. And it felt like denial. Like, no,
I should just think about no. Create a new pathway
and you pray for your spouse. You look at things different.
(30:14):
You don't entertain that constant negative thought pattern. And when I,
I remember hearing about this positive illusion. And I thought, well,
these are people that are like just ridiculous. They're not
seeing the truth of the relationship because I would say
Dave sees me as being better than I am.
S6 (30:33):
And I do.
S2 (30:34):
And I would say I was in the past seeing
Dave worse than what he was. And so the that
way of thinking changes us. And so I thought, what
am I supposed to deny these negative feelings? No, you're
going to talk to God about it, but you're going
to also begin training your mind to see the good
things and thinking about it's it's the Scripture. Think about
(30:57):
what is good and lovely.
S3 (30:59):
And by and by the way, we haven't said this
the whole interview yet. We are definitely not saying if
you're living with an abusive man who's who's abusing you
physically or verbally or a bad man, we are not saying, hey,
just speak life, right? You know, positive illusion. It's like, no, no, no, no,
you need to get safe. You need to take some
steps and get some people around you to help save
(31:22):
this marriage, but, uh. So this is for a good
willed man who's just. She's just like me, clueless, just,
you know, missing it. Yeah. You know, you can literally
change your marriage by what we're talking about. But if
you're in, if you're in trouble, you need to get help.
S2 (31:37):
And, Gary, I've around that time, I started reading going
through the One Year Bible. I'm on year number 18
now of reading the whole Bible through in a year,
and that has probably changed me more than anything else
that I've ever done, because now I'm seeing God properly
for who he is, and I can see others the
(31:58):
way God sees them. And and it helps me. And
I remember even memorizing Ephesians 429, do not let any
unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what
is helpful for building others up according to their needs,
that it may benefit those who listen. So it's kind
of those practices and habits that become a lifestyle?
S6 (32:20):
Yeah.
S5 (32:22):
I want to encourage the ladies to memorize that verse,
and I want to encourage the men to memorize that verse.
It was Ephesians chapter four. If you're listening, Ephesians chapter four,
verse 29. We all need to be hearing that every
single day. And if we memorize it yet, that will
be powerful. Wow. What what does constant criticism do to
(32:44):
a man or to a woman, for that matter? You know,
if he's giving her constant criticism. But what does it do?
S3 (32:50):
Uh, you know, I would say from a man's perspective
and like you said, I think it goes both ways.
It demoralizes, it demotivates it tears down. Um, and again,
there are times we need criticism or the truth spoken
in love. Ephesians 415 but man, when that's all you're hearing,
(33:12):
I think you find that you pull away. You don't
pull toward that person. you pull away. I mean, some
people get motivated and they're a better athlete when they
get critiqued. And I've been around coaches in the NFL
for 30 some years. I was coached as an athlete.
Criticism just isn't the best way. There are things you
need to hear that are true that are hard to hear.
(33:35):
But when you are affirming and positive and encouraging, I'm
telling you, you know, one way to say it is
when you say your man is a good man, it's
like you put a crown on him and he becomes
a king. You know, it's like when an started saying,
you're a good husband. And I first again, I said earlier,
at first I was like, I am not. You don't
(33:56):
think I. You've never thought that. What are you doing?
Are you just lying now? And then she kept saying it,
you know, regularly in, in different ways and specifics that
she'd call out and say, man, what you just did
with the boys there, that was that was great. Way
to go. All I know is she was saying I
was better than I thought I was, and it motivated
me to be as good as she thought I said
I was. So I'm just telling wives, when you do that,
(34:19):
your man jumps higher, he runs faster. I don't know
how to explain it, and I'm sure it goes the
other way as husbands praise and affirm their women.
S2 (34:27):
Well.
S3 (34:27):
Their wives.
S2 (34:28):
My best friend Michelle, she and her husband were going
through kind of a valley and she was complaining about
him a lot. And we would talk and walk and
we'd pray. And she was just in this negative thought
pattern and she would say negative things. And so we
started like encouraging one another. And I said, Michelle, I'm
going to pray for you. And she wasn't great with
(34:49):
her words, but she was good at texting him or
writing something down. And then she decided, she said, okay,
I'm going to pray that prayer, show me the greatness
of Dave. And so she.
S6 (35:00):
Rob, not me.
S2 (35:01):
Yeah, not of you.
S6 (35:01):
Sorry.
S2 (35:02):
Show me the greatness of Rob. And so she bought
a journal, a cool journal. And so she started praying
that prayer. And so she started just putting little just
jotting little notes like, hey, Rob, thanks for putting up
the Christmas lights up outside. It's cold in Michigan and
every year you do it. I know you hate doing it,
but you do it because you love us. Thank you.
(35:23):
And she had been complaining about him not making it
to the girls soccer games. Instead of complaining, she said, Rob,
thank you for making it to the end of the game.
When you walked in the stadium, I saw our daughter
see you walk in and her whole countenance changed and
it lifted her spirit. That's what your presence does to
all of us. And so she would write just little
(35:44):
things like that a few times a week. And then
on his birthday, she gave it to him. He unwrapped
it and he sat in the chair. He read the
whole thing in one sitting and he cried the entire time.
And this is Dave's best friend. And we said, Rob,
why did you cry? And he said, because as a man,
(36:05):
I feel like I'm always failing. I feel like I'm
failing as a father and as a dad. I feel
like I'm not good enough. And by her words, I
am so motivated to be that man, to be better
than what I am right now. Like, I want to
do anything in the world for Michelle and the girls
because of her words brought me such life.
S6 (36:25):
Wow.
S2 (36:25):
And that's exactly what we're talking about. Those are words
of life. They they help our spouse to become the
person God created them to be.
S5 (36:35):
Dave, let's talk about to do list which many wives
make for their husbands. How do most men see those lists?
How do they take those lists that the wife gives them?
S3 (36:48):
Well, I wish I could say we love the honeydew list.
S6 (36:52):
I love the list. It has made those lists.
S3 (36:55):
I think she has one for me right now. When
we get done with this.
S6 (36:58):
Totally.
S3 (36:59):
Interviews. Like we got stuff. I mean, in some ways
I hate him and in other ways I know that
it really makes her feel loved and seen and appreciated
and a priority. Even though I hate them, I think
I need to do them. And the thing I hate
is when, you know, she asked me to do something
(37:20):
and I think it means today or in the next
five hours, and she meant in the next five minutes
and she comes walking back in, what are you doing
watching the ESPN? I'm like, oh, you wanted that done
right now.
S6 (37:34):
And.
S2 (37:34):
Then I'll roll my eyes and go do it myself.
S6 (37:37):
That's that way of being.
S3 (37:39):
And so I would say to the guys, man, if
you can check off 1 or 2 every day, you're.
S6 (37:44):
Every.
S2 (37:45):
Day, how about once a like.
S3 (37:47):
Okay, okay, I'm going back to that once a week.
That's even.
S6 (37:50):
Better. Well Gary.
S2 (37:51):
What do you think of the honey do list?
S5 (37:54):
Well, I think it can be helpful because at least
it tells the husband what would be meaningful to her,
you know? So in that sense, it's good. But I
also understand how men can get overwhelmed when he just
gets list after list after list. And he's got so
many other things to do that he feels frustrated, you know.
So there's pros and cons to that.
S6 (38:14):
Yeah.
S3 (38:15):
Ann's love language is acts of service. So I guess.
S6 (38:18):
I gotta get.
S3 (38:19):
I gotta get off the couch and do.
S6 (38:20):
It. Gary, I will say this.
S2 (38:22):
I thought this was interesting. We talked to we were
on a podcast yesterday where this man said, you know, I,
my wife gave me this list and I came in.
He said, I worked for hours, I came in, it
was the hot Texas sun, pure sweat, feeling really good
about what I accomplished. And my wife said, but you
didn't do that, this one thing on the list. And
(38:45):
he said it was like she popped all the air
out of my being because she didn't notice the things
I did. Right. She just pointed out what I didn't do.
And so I think with our list, we have to
be really careful with that of how we encourage them
and maybe ask, how, how can I help you with
the list? Maybe that would be a good question.
S6 (39:05):
Yeah.
S5 (39:06):
No respect. Respect is crucial to marriages. So how do
couples rebuild respect after? There's been a lot of negative
things spoken to each other?
S3 (39:20):
I mean, I would say on one side, if they're
if you are disrespecting your your husband or your wife
because of something they've done, uh, where they've betrayed your
vows or broken a promise, then it's on the spouse
who who sinned or broke that promise to earn back.
S2 (39:37):
Is that trust or respect?
S3 (39:39):
Trust and respect. It's it's very closely the same thing.
But yeah, it's on me if I've broken the trust,
I've got, you know, trust is built over decades and
it's gone in a second and it's going to take,
you know, days, months, years to rebuild. So you build
that back. And in some ways you give respect and
(40:00):
love unconditionally. But it's also, you know, I would say
to the husbands, be respectable so that she gives it
in in one sense. And I'd also say to us, well,
we give it as well, because God gives us what
we don't deserve. So we we bless. But we actually
you want to live in a way that is respectable
or trustable.
S2 (40:21):
And you do that. Dave. One of the things and
that word today feels rebellious. It feels like we're in
a culture in a time where respect feels like it
should be earned. I'm not going to give it to
you unless you earn it. But really, God does continue
to love us, pursue us, respect us, and lift us
up in the midst of our sin. And so when
(40:42):
I was on that journey with, I felt like I
had not been respecting Dave in a good way, especially
through my words. And so when I started out with
a simple thank you, I'm going to start just thanking
him because I don't want to fake it. I'm not
going to say, oh, you're blah blah blah. So I
can start with just saying thank you. And Gary, it's
so embarrassing when I started thinking, why don't I want
(41:04):
to thank him? It was because here's what I thought.
This is so wrong. I thought, well, who thanks me?
I do everything around here and nobody notices or thanks me.
Do you hear the pride and arrogance in that? And
so I remember I was really starting to try to
work on this. And so I said to Dave, this
is before we were eating. The boys were at the table.
(41:25):
Before we prayed. I said, hey guys, before we pray
and eat, I just want to say this, Dave, thank
you for working so hard. You work super hard. You
are so good at what you do and you're providing
really for our family through your tenacity of working hard
and providing. Thank you for that. Which to Dave, felt
(41:45):
like respect.
S3 (41:47):
Oh, I mean, I knew she was looking at Gary's
book and doing what.
S6 (41:51):
It said in there. You know.
S3 (41:53):
It was on the kitchen hutch right behind her, but
it didn't matter.
S6 (41:57):
I was like.
S3 (41:58):
My chest started puffing up. I'm like, I am. I
am the man, aren't I? Of course I didn't say that,
but I, I was shocked at how good it made
me feel. And I'm just telling you, no wives here
that that's what happens inside your man when you do this.
And that's why I wrote in Ann's book. It's really
her book. And at the end of each chapter I said, hey, ladies,
(42:19):
here's a man's or a husband's perspective that, you know,
will maybe help, you know, understand your your husband's perspective.
S2 (42:26):
Well, and I've had women come up to me to say,
and you don't understand who I'm married to. He's not abusive,
but there's nothing to cheer about. I see nothing, which
is super sad, but it's the reality of their situation.
And what I say to them is, I say this
man that you're married to, first of all, you married
him because you probably saw something in him that you liked.
(42:49):
And so go back to those things. And I did,
and I said this, he's made in the image of God,
and God is cheering for every single one of us,
every single day. There's something in him because he's made
in the image of God that you can cheer for.
you can see. And so start looking for those little things.
You don't have to fake it. You're not saying it
(43:10):
to manipulate them. But just ask God. Our son calls it.
Who's a preacher? God. Goggles. Put on your god goggles
so you can see your spouse the way God sees them.
And then you'll begin to say the things to them
that God says to them. But let me say this
if you are not locked in with Jesus and surrender
being filled with the spirit every.
S6 (43:30):
Day, this is possible.
S2 (43:31):
It's not going to happen. You'll do it for about
three days and give up, because this is a work
of God's Spirit in us that's transforming us.
S6 (43:40):
Yeah.
S5 (43:41):
You mentioned this before, but what is the role of
prayer in a marriage?
S2 (43:47):
Well, you've probably seen this stat, Gary, and you've probably
talked about it on your program, but the divorce rate
in our culture is one out of every two. But
the divorce rate with couples who pray together on a
regular basis is one in every Thousand and 52.
S3 (44:05):
No. 1152.
S2 (44:07):
Oh, that's even better.
S3 (44:09):
Yeah. I mean, it's staggering to understand that. And as
you know, when you're praying alone, that's great. It's awesome.
But then when you go, we call it go vertical
with Jesus, with God together with your spouse. It doesn't
even have to be every day. But on a regular basis,
there's something that happens that's oneness together again, do it.
(44:31):
You know, alone. But man, when you bring your spouse
in together, we we've many times spent years on our
knees at the foot of our bed before we crawled
in bed at night. We, in fact, we need to
get back into doing that.
S2 (44:43):
But it's hard to pray when you're mad at each other.
S6 (44:45):
Oh, I do not want to pray.
S2 (44:47):
At.
S6 (44:47):
All.
S2 (44:48):
And sometimes if Dave would fall asleep, I would think, well,
he's falling asleep. It's his job to pray. You know,
I would think something like that. And can I just
say Satan wins in those situations? Because if one person prays,
maybe you have a spouse that won't pray. It's okay
even if you say, Jesus, thank you for today. We
need your help. That could be your prayer every night.
(45:10):
Or Lord, thank you for my spouse even though they're
driving you crazy. Thank you for my spouse. Help us. Amen.
It could be that quick. And that is so powerful.
And it changes our marriages, our legacies in a miraculous way.
S6 (45:26):
Yeah.
S5 (45:28):
And talk to the wife who's listening, who says I'm
on board? I want to relate better with my husband.
What advice would you give her?
S2 (45:38):
Well, first of all, if you're saying that I'm so
excited for you. Like, this is a journey that for
me has taken years. And I get like, teary thinking
about where I would be had I not gone on
this journey. And I think Dave would have just we
would have just been so isolated because he would have
continued to move away and push away from me. We'd
(46:00):
be in the same house, but we'd be very separate
in our intimacy with our relationship. And so way to go.
And I would say cling to Jesus as Dave said already, like,
get in a church. Find some women. I want to
put this. I'm we're trying to create this, um, book
into a small group. Even if you hear this and
(46:20):
you think I want to do this, get a friend,
grab a friend and say, do you want to read
this with me together? And let's commit to being in
the word. It could be that you're on a Bible app,
and if you have little kids, listen to the scriptures
every day. Just put it on the car. Put it
somewhere that you can hear, even if it's a few
verses a day, and then go through this with somebody
(46:41):
and ask God to change you, because it's easy to
see as the as Matthew in the Bible says, the
splinter in our spouse's eye when we might have a
log in our own eye. So ask God, like God,
change me. I lay down my life, pride, my arrogance,
and Lord, I'm going to pick up a mirror, and
I want to change the things that you want to
(47:02):
change in me and help me to learn to speak
life to my husband and also to my kids.
S3 (47:08):
You know, and I would just add, I think if
this happens and I'm not talking just about wife speaking
life to their husbands, but husbands speaking life to.
S6 (47:16):
Their.
S3 (47:16):
Wives as well, I think it could create almost a
revival sense of the Christian family in the home and
a legacy. Your home would. The atmosphere will change and
your neighbors will be drawn to your backyard, to your
family room, because they sense something positive, something alive. They
(47:38):
don't even know it's Jesus.
S6 (47:40):
It's the.
S2 (47:40):
Gospel.
S3 (47:40):
But it'll point them to Jesus because there's there's there's life.
I think men come alive in the church when they
walk in the church. Coming out of a marriage in
their home where they feel believed in and seen and affirmed,
they walk in the church like, okay, what do you
what do you need me to do? I'm a I'm
a powerful man. I how do I know that? My
wife just told me that all week. You know, there's
(48:01):
something so powerful that happens in the soul of a
man when he comes alive because he has a woman
beside him that believes in him. And everything I'm saying goes,
goes the other way, too. When a wife feels seen
and believed by her man, she becomes the woman God
created to be. We have a powerful role in each
other's lives that we can use to build up or
(48:24):
tear down. And I'm just saying, God has given us this,
this influence in this power, especially you wives. Man, he
wants to do something powerful in and through you.
S5 (48:34):
Well, Dave and Anne, I want to thank you for
being with us today and thank you for writing this book.
I mean, you know, you've gone through it, you've lived it,
now you're writing it. And and in an effort to
help other people and I, I think this book is
going to help anyone who will pick it up and
read it. And I would encourage pastors and others to
let their congregations know about this book, because I think
(48:56):
it's dealing with really, really crucial issues in a marriage.
So again, thanks for all that you're doing and God
bless you.
S2 (49:05):
Thank you Gary. You're one of our great heroes.
S3 (49:08):
Yeah. We love.
S6 (49:09):
You and.
S3 (49:09):
Appreciate you. And thank you. You too Chris.
S4 (49:12):
What an encouraging conversation. Dave and Ann Wilson, thank you.
And don't miss the featured resource at Building Relationships How
to Speak Life to Your Husband. When all you want
to do is yell at him. Find out more at
building relationships.
S5 (49:28):
And next week. What can we learn from a dysfunctional
family in the Bible?
S1 (49:34):
Lessons from the life of Joseph are coming up in
one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team,
Steve Wick and Janice backing. 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.
If you want your husband to be more attentive, more involved,
more loving, but all you can do is yell at him.
Don't miss today's Building Relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman.
S2 (00:11):
The truth is, I seldom cheered for Dave because I
thought he doesn't need that. Everybody else is telling him
all these great things, not knowing that my words were
some of the most powerful words in his life.
S3 (00:23):
When your wife, who sees all the the good and
the bad and the ugly, says, I'm with you and
I believe in you. Oh that's powerful. God has given
wives that power.
S1 (00:37):
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of
the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages. Today,
co-hosts of Family Life Today, Dave and Ann Wilson will
give marriage changing advice for wives.
S4 (00:51):
And the advice is not to yell louder. No, there's
a better way. And you're going to hear about it
today if you go to Building Relationships. Our are featured resource.
Right there is the book written by Ann Wilson along
with her husband, Dave. How to speak life to your husband.
When all you want to do is yell at him,
just go to building relationships. And Gary, you have said
(01:12):
through the years that when a marriage is in trouble
or there's a struggle, there's somebody has to be the
first to make a change. And often that's the wife
who sees that the marriage is not what it could be.
S5 (01:24):
Well, I think that's true, Chris. Not always. Sometimes it
is the husband. But I I've experienced that. More likely
than not, it's going to be the wife, you know,
who says, I've got to have help, I've got to
do something, you know, and she may reach out to
a counselor or talk to him about going for counseling
and that sort of thing. So I am really, really
excited about our talk today with Dave and Ann, because
I think this book is going to help a lot
(01:46):
of wives and husbands for that matter.
S4 (01:49):
I do too. Let's meet if you haven't met him before.
Ann and Dave Wilson, best selling authors, former co-founders of
Kensington Church. Former chaplains for the Detroit Lions. They now
serve as FamilyLife today radio and podcast hosts as nationally
known Speakers on marriage as well. Ann and Dave have
been married for more than 40 years, and they have
three grown sons, a multitude of grandchildren. And if you
(02:12):
go to building relationships, you'll see the featured resource how
to speak life to your husband when all you want
to do is yell at him and just go to
building relationships.
S5 (02:22):
Well, Dave and Ann, welcome back to Building Relationships.
S3 (02:26):
We are glad to be with you.
S2 (02:28):
We always love being with you, Gary.
S5 (02:30):
Well, Ann, talk about that dynamic of a wife realizing
that there's more to marriage and wanting things to change.
Do you think it's more often the wife than the
husband that what Chris was asking me that wants to
change or takes initiative.
S2 (02:45):
From what we've seen and experienced, because we've been speaking
at conferences for over 35 years and generally speaking, not always,
but generally. Yes. And I think part of that is
because we as women tend to be more locked into
the relationships around the home. And what I've seen, especially
in our relationship, is Dave. He's kind of, um, he's
(03:07):
more aware outside of his career of what's going on Ministry.
S3 (03:11):
Now be nice.
S2 (03:12):
I am being nice, but it seems like I'm the
one that is kind of like noticing and the things
at home that maybe or even the relationship of what
could be better.
S3 (03:21):
I mean, Gary, you might remember, uh, in our first book,
Vertical Marriage, I thought on our ten year anniversary, our
marriage was a ten. I thought we were great. And
I found out on that date. She said, we're not
even a one. We're a minus five.
S2 (03:34):
No, I said a 0.5.
S3 (03:36):
So I think women really are much more intense. They
know what's going on.
S5 (03:44):
Well, in the in the opening of your book, you
talk about how criticism affected your own marriage. So tell
us what happened.
S2 (03:52):
Yeah. And here's what has happened. Like every marriage has,
as you guys all know, and your listeners probably do too.
Every marriage has peaks and valleys. And Dave and I
have gone through some valleys. But at this phase of
our marriage, back when we were probably married between 15
and 20 years, it's just a busy stage of life.
(04:12):
Kids in school, you're running all over the place. And
one of the things that happened was I was asked
to come to speak to a women's group at our
Church of Young Moms. And so I was so busy,
I said, Dave, you should come with me. The women
will love it. You're the pastor. If you come, they're
going to love it. So we get up there and
Dave starts just going off on things that I had
never heard him share in our lives, in our marriage.
(04:35):
And he says, women, I don't even know if you
understand what it's like for us as guys, because usually
we have someone, a parent, a mom or a dad,
somebody saying good job when we're little. Hey, you're good
at that. And then we get older and we find
out what we're passionate about, what we're good at, and
we have a coach or a teacher saying, good job.
You're great. And he said, I played college football, so
(04:56):
on Saturdays I have people cheering for me in the stands,
he said. And then I meet Ann and basically she says,
of all the men in the world, I choose you.
Dave Wilson, you're the man, and she's cheering for me. And, Gary,
I'm sitting on this stool in the back thinking, huh?
I've never heard him share any of this. That's so interesting.
But then he drops this bomb, and he his tone
(05:20):
shifts and he gets quieter, and he says, but then
when we've been married a while, it feels like when
we walk in the door, at the end of the day,
all we hear is boo boo. And I'm like, wait,
what just happened?
S3 (05:36):
I mean, Gary, when I said that, I look over
at her, she's on the stool behind me and I'm like,
I am a dead man. I have never said this
to her. I'm saying it to a couple hundred women
and she doesn't even. And we get in the car
and she's like, you think I boo you? I am
helping you.
S2 (05:52):
I honestly thought, I see all these things about you
and I can see what needs to be fixed and
help you to be better. And I honestly and I
truly think most women feel the same. We see these
things and we think, oh, I could help you to
be better if you change this and you don't do
this and you say it like this. And so I
(06:12):
said to him, like, Dave, I am helping you. And
he said, do you think it's working? And I said, no,
it's not working. That's why I have to say it
so often. And he said, all I know is this.
And it feels like you are always trying to tweak me,
fix me, help me, change me. You compare me to
(06:33):
other people, other dads, other men. He goes, I just
feel like you don't really like me. Who? And that
was big. When I got home, I went before God
and I said, first of all, I vented to God,
which is okay to do, like, Lord, can you believe that?
But then I asked him that question like God, do
you think I boo Dave and I felt this confirmation
(06:55):
in my spirit of start paying attention to your thoughts
and start paying attention to your words and Gary. The
truth is, I seldom cheered for Dave because I thought
he doesn't need that. Everybody else is telling him all
these great things, not knowing that my words were some
of the most powerful words in his life.
S5 (07:14):
Wow. I have an idea that some couples listening to
us right now are identifying with what you're saying. Now,
the title of your book uses the phrase speak life.
What does that look like? Practically?
S2 (07:32):
Hmm. Well, Proverbs 1821 says, the tongue has the power
of life and death. And then Proverbs 1624 says, gracious
words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing
to the bones. And those are pretty graphic Terms and words.
(07:52):
And I really think what happens when we speak words
of affirmation, words of gratitude, words of thankfulness, words of.
And this is true for anybody in our homes, our families,
words that build up rather than tear down, that brings
the soul life. And it feels good, doesn't it?
S5 (08:13):
Absolutely.
S3 (08:14):
Yeah. And you know, Gary, I can add you know,
she the books sort of a memoir.
S2 (08:19):
It's my memoir.
S3 (08:20):
Because it's sort of this journey that it wasn't just
an we both went on and it didn't change in
a day or a week or even a month over years.
She is my greatest cheerleader. It's it's amazing. There isn't
a day that goes by in my life that she
doesn't speak life and affirmation and belief in me. And
when she first started doing it, I just looked at
(08:42):
her like, you don't really think I'm a good husband.
You just said I am. But you don't think that
you've never said that before. So I didn't believe it.
But over the years it's like, oh my goodness, she
really thinks I'm a good man. And it motivates me
to be even a better man because critique and discouragement
doesn't motivate, you know, encouragement and affirmation does. And at
(09:03):
the same time, we are not saying you don't speak
truth because there are times you need to say some
hard things. But if that's all you're saying, he all
he hears is boo. But if you're speaking life and
affirmation and belief, and then you have to come in
and say, hey, there's something I need to say that
you're not going to like, but I need to say it.
He's going to receive that and it's going to make
him a better man.
S2 (09:22):
But we still need to package it in a way
that our spouse can hear it. Like our words shouldn't
be demeaning or name calling. We still have to do
it in a way that honors the other person.
S5 (09:33):
Yeah. So why doesn't nagging or yelling at your husband
achieve a desirable result?
S2 (09:42):
Yeah, why doesn't it, Dave?
S3 (09:44):
I mean, you're the expert, Gary. I mean, it's just
it it demotivates. Yeah. I mean, and thought and we
talked to so many wives that feel the same thing.
It's like if if I prod him, it's going to,
it's going to make him say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
step up and do what she asked.
S2 (10:02):
That I'll show you. I'll show you. That's what I thought. Oh,
he's going to get motivated like a coach. Oh, I'll
show you, coach.
S3 (10:08):
And it just didn't work that way. And I found,
especially at that time of our marriage, that I was
spending a lot more time away from the home than
in the home. And again, I'm not blaming him, but
I felt like out there, they think I'm good. I
come home and she thinks I'm bad. I'll say, see
you later. I'm going back to preaching. I'm going back
to leading this Bible study. And nobody says no in ministry.
(10:31):
They all want you to to serve. And so I
found that I was running away from home. I'll tell
you what, I am running home now because she believes
in me and she speaks life to me, and she
thanks me. And it goes both ways. Women aren't motivated
by criticism either. It's. just the way we're wired. It's
like speak life. And that will bring life to the
person you're speaking life to.
S2 (10:52):
And Gary, this is so embarrassing, but I've talked to
some friends and other women too. And if you would
have asked me and why didn't you speak words of
life and encourage Dave, what I would have said was
because I don't want him to think I'm satisfied with
where we are right now. If he hears me say, hey,
you're a great man, or you're good or whatever, I'll
(11:12):
think he'll think I'm satisfied, and then he'll remain where
he is, or get lazier and not try to be better.
It's so counterintuitive and so wrong in that thinking, because
think about that. I just feel like there's an enemy, too,
that wants us to speak death. Words like you're not
good enough, you're not measuring up. And this is our
(11:35):
best friend. This is our partner. If anybody should be
lavished with words of life and affirmation, it should be
the people that we're living with under the same roof.
S5 (11:45):
And I want to ask you, did you really yell
at Dave?
S3 (11:49):
Yeah she did. I'll answer that for her. She could
be a feisty, feisty girl.
S2 (11:57):
Okay, you guys, I didn't think I was yelling, I
thought I was, I thought I was, like, motivating or
being passionate. I, I don't think I yelled that much,
but you probably heard it as that. But you know what, Gary?
I don't think some women do yell. I think they
bottle it up inside. But it's interesting. At the Barber Institute,
(12:17):
they say that researchers studied a person's way of being,
which means like the energy or the feel that they
give off, that people actually instinctively feel and respond to
your way of being toward them more than your behaviors
or your words.
S3 (12:36):
So she definitely had a way of being and, you know,
a roll of the eyes, you know, a dismissal. And
I do the same thing. We've all done it, but
it's it's just as powerful as a word. Just a look,
you know, like, I'm disappointed in you again.
S2 (12:53):
And I thought I was being very sophisticated in kind
of my motive. I call it motivation. He would call
it booing. I would say things like, wow, you know,
I just talked to Paula today and you know that
Steve is reading the Bible to his kids every single night.
S3 (13:10):
That always works when you compare your husband to another
husband that really motivates you.
S2 (13:15):
And you know what Dave said? Well, Mary, maybe you
should just have married Steve. Too bad I'm not as
great as him.
S5 (13:23):
Oh well. And a big part of the book is
for wives to recognize negative communication patterns and then replace
criticism with encouragement. Yeah. Can you give us an example
of that from your own marriage?
S2 (13:38):
Yeah. I felt like when I started paying attention to
my thoughts about Dave, and it really does start there.
It starts. And Romans 12 two tells us that it says,
do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind. And so I was
asking God like, Lord, my thoughts about Dave are super negative. Like,
(14:00):
I can remember folding the laundry and we're all learning
so much now about brain science. And we know that
we create neurological pathways and the pathway that I had
created about Dave. It's a same old conversation. I get
in a rut and I start complaining about him in
my mind. He's not home. He's never home. Everything is
(14:21):
more important than me. He's on his device. Um, he
gives more energy outside the home than inside the home.
He's not leading spiritually. I mean, the list just kept
going on, and I would get in that spiritual rut
of thinking those negative things. One time I was folding clothes,
and I felt God impress me of saying, what would
happen if you prayed for him as much as you
(14:42):
complained about him. And so I think and Paul tells us,
take every thought captive. And so I started trying to
do that, like, and I started with this very simple thing.
I thought, okay, I'm going to start just by thanking Dave,
seeing the things that he is right. And this became
my prayer. Jesus, show me the greatness in Dave.
S3 (15:04):
Yeah, I can tell you, one night I came home
late after preaching and being on the sideline with the Lions.
So a long weekend. And I just said to her
as I was crawling into bed, you know, I've been
getting a lot of critiques lately about my sermons, and
I really was just ready to go back to sleep.
And I'll never forget how she responded. It was so
different than what I had previously expected.
S2 (15:28):
Well, that's because I'm a verbal processor, so if I
think it, I generally would say it. But I also
felt like God gave me some other instructions. I felt
like he was saying and ask me a few questions
before you say anything. First of all, ask this question,
and I think this is helpful maybe for your listeners too.
Should I say this? And so it's this quick prayer, Lord,
(15:50):
should I say it? And then the next prayer. And
then I felt like I should say, and Lord, here's
my next prayer. Is now the time and how should
I say it, if anything? And so when Dave said,
I feel like I've been getting these critiques, here was
my prayer. Lord, should I say what I thought? Which
was here was my thought. If you would spend more
time studying the scriptures, I think your sermons would be
(16:11):
way better. So I say, God, should I say that? No.
And then I said, should I say anything right now?
And this thought popped into my mind. And so this
is what I said. I said, wow, Dave, I can't
imagine what it's like to be you. You have thousands
of people dependent on your walk with God. That must
(16:33):
be an incredibly weighty thing for you to carry every
single day. And then there was silence. and then he
pulls me over to himself and he whispers in my ear,
you are my life. Oh, and that's that's the power
of one. You're bringing God into it. Saying a quick
prayer and it takes a second, a quick prayer. And
(16:54):
yet God can bring us together instead of saying, well,
if you just spend more time studying the scriptures, that
would have been terrible.
S3 (17:02):
And I also think it it just displays the power
that God has given women and given wives. Mhm. You
know those words from a, a wife to a man.
They're powerful. Somebody else says that to me. It's I
smile and say thank you. But when your wife who
sees all the, the good and the bad and the ugly, says,
I'm with you and I believe in you. Oh that's powerful.
(17:25):
God has given wives that power.
S4 (17:27):
I gotta ask you then, Dave. What? Because that's a
hallmark moment. It's like I can see that. I can
see that in a movie somewhere. Or in a romance novel.
You are my life. But what was it that allowed
you to get to that place of the heart where
you're struggling with, you know, the negative feedback that you've gotten?
(17:47):
She says that it and that was speaking life to you.
How did you reciprocate then and and move that back
to her?
S3 (17:56):
Well, you know, it's interesting. In that moment, I didn't think, hey,
I'm gonna grab her and say, you are my life.
You know, I just did because her words. And really,
I think the fact that she's my partner, she she
sees behind the curtain.
S2 (18:14):
She gets me.
S3 (18:15):
What I, what I carry and others don't. And so
I think for husbands in some ways for us to
help our wives is, is we need to be vulnerable
with our struggles, with our weakness, with our fears. I
think sometimes we put up this mask of, I'm, you know,
I'm a man and I've got this figured out and
I got it all together and we don't And we're scared.
(18:37):
And we're, you know, in some ways we're little boys
that still are saying, hey, do you see me? Am
I doing a good job? And so when we let
down that guard to our wives and say, you know,
here's something I'm struggling with, or here's a fear I have.
It lets them in like, oh my goodness, he needs me.
I need her. And so I think for men put
down that, that, that, that facade or that shield and
(19:00):
be vulnerable and honest with your wife and she will
be drawn to you, not pushed away by you. She'll
be like, he needs me. And we try to act
like we don't need anybody and we need Jesus first
of all. But he also created us in a way.
We need community. We need other people, first of all,
our spouse and then others. I need men in my life.
She needs women in her life. We need couples in
(19:21):
our life.
S2 (19:22):
And I think many men don't tell their wives what
they're feeling in terms of like, Dave had never told
me that he feels like I boo him, but had
he come to me and said, Ann, I feel like
I'm failing you. it feels like you're not happy. And
it makes me want to pull away because I feel
like I'm continually failing and letting you down. I think
(19:43):
if he would have said that and we could have
had a deeper like, and if he said, it feels
like you're I'm feeling discouraged by your words and I
don't know what to do about that.
S3 (19:53):
And part of me thinks, you know, looking back, I
was afraid to do that with her because it was
so intimate. But to do it on a stage with
a couple other women, that was easy. And I shouldn't
have done it that way. But that's how I came out,
and it's because I think I was afraid it's easier
to do that on a stage than it is in
your kitchen.
S6 (20:12):
Mhm. Yeah.
S5 (20:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Well you know, and maybe you've answered this
question but how do you make that shift internally. You
know the wife is you know has that pattern. Is
it a process to see that you're feeling something negative
and you want to yell or criticize and you somehow
then turn and go a different direction?
S2 (20:33):
Yeah. The first thing I had to do is. And
I feel like this is a daily thing where I
have to be in full submission and surrender to Jesus.
I have to be in his word because that transforms me,
transforms my mind and who he is, who God is.
Because he is the one that is the ultimate one
that fills me up, not Dave. Because as soon as
I take my eyes off of Jesus, I want Dave
(20:55):
to fill me up and make me happy. And his.
That's not his job. And it's not his job to
meet all of my needs. And I've tried to change him, Gary,
and I can't. But I know that that's Jesus's job.
And so what happened is that prayer that I started praying. God,
show me the greatness in Dave. Can I tell you
that God will answer that prayer? And so here's an example.
(21:19):
Before I was seeing all the negative because I created
that that negative neurological pathway. And now I'm asking God,
renew my mind, change my mind, change my eyes. Let
me see the greatness. So this one night he goes
in and one of our big complaints was I had
an expectation of what it should look like for him
to lead spiritually. Our sons. And I'd complain about that
(21:40):
all the time. So and he doesn't. He didn't even
grow up with a dad in the house. He didn't
even or in the church. He didn't even know what
that looked like. So I prayed that prayer. Show me
the greatness of what Dave's doing, right? He goes in
and prays with the boys one night and I'm watching them,
and he comes out of the room. I said, man,
I'm so jealous of the power that you carry. And
(22:01):
he said, what do you mean? I said, you go
in there and these boys are clinging to every word
you say. I go in there and there's bedlam and
chaos going on. But with those three boys, they're clinging
to you. You have this power. I don't think you
even understand. And it's so funny because the next night,
guess where he was again?
S3 (22:20):
I was running up the stairs, you know, and she
didn't say that to manipulate me, to get me up there,
but I, I realized, oh, my goodness, I'm I'm pretty
good at this. I have a different way to lead
spiritually than she sort of thought it would look like.
But she's starting to realize, oh, that's how he leads
and it works. And so it motivated me as a man.
(22:41):
Rather the criticism I withdrew. I didn't even go in
the room. I was like, yeah, I'm not very good
at this. I'm not doing it the way she wants.
I'll watch ESPN, you know? But when she said that,
I can tell you where I was standing in the
hallway when she said those words, I'm like, wow, that, that,
that that transforms a man.
S2 (22:59):
And Gary, you can probably tell what Dave's love language is.
Words of affirmation.
S6 (23:05):
Yes.
S5 (23:06):
Yes. Well, talk to the wife who who has said today. Maybe.
I just can't believe he did that. Everything in her
wants to scream. And here you're saying that that moment
can actually help the two of you connect?
S2 (23:25):
Yeah.
S5 (23:26):
Talk to her.
S6 (23:28):
Well.
S2 (23:29):
I felt like that probably 3032 times a day. That
same that same feeling. And I think as wives, we
have to gauge of when we should say things and
when we should wait or if we shouldn't even say anything.
And I think that's an issue. I remember thinking, I'm
so bugged by this, he's driving me crazy. Or I've
asked him to do this 930 times. And I think
(23:53):
our walk with God, this sounds such like a pat answer,
but I have to be in God's Word, as I
said before, and that begins to change my eyes. And
so my prayer was, Lord, if I should say anything
to Dave, bring it up again tomorrow. But when I react,
and that's what I would say if if he's doing
something and you just yell at him or say something,
(24:14):
or you have a way of being about him that
he can feel. Try not to react in the moment.
Because if you give yourself a little time, you say
a quick little prayer of Lord, give me wisdom, which
James says he will give generously. Say a prayer, Lord,
give me wisdom. Should I say anything? Maybe you go
and talk to God about it. Maybe you have a
really close girlfriend who loves Jesus and you're like, can
(24:37):
you pray with me about this? I need to know
if I should say it, how I should say it.
Because you know this, Gary, you've heard it with the
John Gottman there Institute that it takes five positives to
negate one negative. And so I think we just have
to fill each other's tanks up with positive, so that
if we're going to make a deposit or a withdrawal
(25:00):
of a negative, we still wrap it in love and
we can say it but think through, how should I
say this? And how can he hear it in a
way that he really does get what I'm communicating?
S1 (25:16):
This is the building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman podcast,
and Wilson has written our featured resource today along with
her husband, Dave. It's titled How to Speak Life to
Your Husband when all you want to do is yell
at him. Find out more at building relationships. Find out.
Find out more at Five Love languages.com. Plus, you can
take a free assessment of your love language there and
(25:39):
see what Gary is coming to your area for a seminar.
Just go to five Love Languages. Com.
S5 (25:46):
And I think what you're sharing and Dave is sharing
is going to help a lot of our listeners today. Uh,
I'll talk about the unspoken feelings and the deeper issues
that are often behind, uh, you know, under the surface
of conflicts that couples have. Can can a couple deal
with those kind of things without going to a counselor
(26:08):
or a pastor, uh, to guide them?
S2 (26:11):
I think a counselor can really be helpful. They've helped
us in the past.
S3 (26:16):
Oh, definitely. Definitely.
S2 (26:18):
But we've also learned now and we've I think it's
really important to know each other's stories, to know the
wounds and the hurts that have happened growing up, and
Dave and I both went to a counselor, and I've
had some real wounds that were glaring that I had
never really dealt with.
S3 (26:35):
And mine were even bigger.
S2 (26:37):
Yeah. And we didn't know that those things were bleeding
into our day to day relationship. And so I think
it's really important to share your story, because when you
share your entire story, the good and the bad with
your spouse, what I realized was one, I'm a perfectionist,
so I want my marriage and I want Dave to
be perfect. Yep. And also, I had some wounds in
(26:59):
the past with that. I felt like I wasn't seen
by my parents. They didn't know what was going on.
I have sexual abuse that wasn't dealt with. And and
so I put so many things on Dave thinking that
he could heal some of those wounds. And if you
have an area in your marriage, a cycle that keeps
(27:19):
coming back up of the same fight. Ours was always,
Do you see me? Why aren't you home? Why aren't
I a priority? And those were the things that I
felt growing up. And so they just were bleeding into.
S3 (27:33):
And, you know, behind the curtain in my life is,
you know, I was raised by two alcoholic parents. Adultery affairs.
They got divorced when I was seven, and I didn't
realize it. But I brought into our marriage this drive
to show my dad or anybody. I'm. I can be good.
I can be successful. And so then I there I am,
(27:53):
I'm driving to start a church, not just a church.
It's got to be a megachurch. And I'm not just
a chaplain. I'm chaplain of the losing team in the NFL.
So I gotta, you know, be with the Lions. But
I mean, we're laughing, but I really was, you know,
driven outside the home to be successful and sort of
leaving Anne to take care of the home on her own,
(28:15):
not even realizing she has this desire to be seen.
And I'm not seeing her. So that, I mean, that
was a that was a setup for a marriage that's
going to crumble. Jesus saved our marriage. And again, sitting
down with a Christian counselor who can help you identify
some of the luggage that you bring into your marriage.
You got a process that if you don't process it
(28:35):
in a in a healing way, it can destroy your marriage.
And so I think it's really important to have community
and a counselor and a good church, so you can
navigate that with others.
S6 (28:47):
Yeah.
S5 (28:48):
So powerful. I think when you have another voice that's
listening and helping you share, you know, those things and
identify them. You're right.
S6 (28:56):
Yeah.
S5 (28:58):
So you talk about the power of thought and how
what you think shapes your behavior towards your spouse. Are
there practical exercises for couples to to get out of
the negative patterns?
S2 (29:11):
Yeah, it's I think this is interesting. There's a doctor,
Helen Fisher, who works with brain scans to study happily
married couples. So she studied couples that had been married
more than 20 years, and both the husband and the
wife said they were madly in love. And what she
did was she studied three areas of the brain, and
(29:32):
one area is responsible for a phenomena called positive illusion,
focusing on what you like about your spouse. I thought
this was fascinating because there's also a negative illusion that
all you see is the negative. And I talked about
that a little bit, but I think that we can
(29:52):
train our brains. And so when Paul says to take
every thought captive, if I would get in my cycle
of starting to meditate on Dave's negatives, I would say, Jesus,
I'm not going to go there. And it felt like denial. Like, no,
I should just think about no. Create a new pathway
and you pray for your spouse. You look at things different.
(30:14):
You don't entertain that constant negative thought pattern. And when I,
I remember hearing about this positive illusion. And I thought, well,
these are people that are like just ridiculous. They're not
seeing the truth of the relationship because I would say
Dave sees me as being better than I am.
S6 (30:33):
And I do.
S2 (30:34):
And I would say I was in the past seeing
Dave worse than what he was. And so the that
way of thinking changes us. And so I thought, what
am I supposed to deny these negative feelings? No, you're
going to talk to God about it, but you're going
to also begin training your mind to see the good
things and thinking about it's it's the Scripture. Think about
(30:57):
what is good and lovely.
S3 (30:59):
And by and by the way, we haven't said this
the whole interview yet. We are definitely not saying if
you're living with an abusive man who's who's abusing you
physically or verbally or a bad man, we are not saying, hey,
just speak life, right? You know, positive illusion. It's like, no, no, no, no,
you need to get safe. You need to take some
steps and get some people around you to help save
(31:22):
this marriage, but, uh. So this is for a good
willed man who's just. She's just like me, clueless, just,
you know, missing it. Yeah. You know, you can literally
change your marriage by what we're talking about. But if
you're in, if you're in trouble, you need to get help.
S2 (31:37):
And, Gary, I've around that time, I started reading going
through the One Year Bible. I'm on year number 18
now of reading the whole Bible through in a year,
and that has probably changed me more than anything else
that I've ever done, because now I'm seeing God properly
for who he is, and I can see others the
(31:58):
way God sees them. And and it helps me. And
I remember even memorizing Ephesians 429, do not let any
unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what
is helpful for building others up according to their needs,
that it may benefit those who listen. So it's kind
of those practices and habits that become a lifestyle?
S6 (32:20):
Yeah.
S5 (32:22):
I want to encourage the ladies to memorize that verse,
and I want to encourage the men to memorize that verse.
It was Ephesians chapter four. If you're listening, Ephesians chapter four,
verse 29. We all need to be hearing that every
single day. And if we memorize it yet, that will
be powerful. Wow. What what does constant criticism do to
(32:44):
a man or to a woman, for that matter? You know,
if he's giving her constant criticism. But what does it do?
S3 (32:50):
Uh, you know, I would say from a man's perspective
and like you said, I think it goes both ways.
It demoralizes, it demotivates it tears down. Um, and again,
there are times we need criticism or the truth spoken
in love. Ephesians 415 but man, when that's all you're hearing,
(33:12):
I think you find that you pull away. You don't
pull toward that person. you pull away. I mean, some
people get motivated and they're a better athlete when they
get critiqued. And I've been around coaches in the NFL
for 30 some years. I was coached as an athlete.
Criticism just isn't the best way. There are things you
need to hear that are true that are hard to hear.
(33:35):
But when you are affirming and positive and encouraging, I'm
telling you, you know, one way to say it is
when you say your man is a good man, it's
like you put a crown on him and he becomes
a king. You know, it's like when an started saying,
you're a good husband. And I first again, I said earlier,
at first I was like, I am not. You don't
(33:56):
think I. You've never thought that. What are you doing?
Are you just lying now? And then she kept saying it,
you know, regularly in, in different ways and specifics that
she'd call out and say, man, what you just did
with the boys there, that was that was great. Way
to go. All I know is she was saying I
was better than I thought I was, and it motivated
me to be as good as she thought I said
I was. So I'm just telling wives, when you do that,
(34:19):
your man jumps higher, he runs faster. I don't know
how to explain it, and I'm sure it goes the
other way as husbands praise and affirm their women.
S2 (34:27):
Well.
S3 (34:27):
Their wives.
S2 (34:28):
My best friend Michelle, she and her husband were going
through kind of a valley and she was complaining about
him a lot. And we would talk and walk and
we'd pray. And she was just in this negative thought
pattern and she would say negative things. And so we
started like encouraging one another. And I said, Michelle, I'm
going to pray for you. And she wasn't great with
(34:49):
her words, but she was good at texting him or
writing something down. And then she decided, she said, okay,
I'm going to pray that prayer, show me the greatness
of Dave. And so she.
S6 (35:00):
Rob, not me.
S2 (35:01):
Yeah, not of you.
S6 (35:01):
Sorry.
S2 (35:02):
Show me the greatness of Rob. And so she bought
a journal, a cool journal. And so she started praying
that prayer. And so she started just putting little just
jotting little notes like, hey, Rob, thanks for putting up
the Christmas lights up outside. It's cold in Michigan and
every year you do it. I know you hate doing it,
but you do it because you love us. Thank you.
(35:23):
And she had been complaining about him not making it
to the girls soccer games. Instead of complaining, she said, Rob,
thank you for making it to the end of the game.
When you walked in the stadium, I saw our daughter
see you walk in and her whole countenance changed and
it lifted her spirit. That's what your presence does to
all of us. And so she would write just little
(35:44):
things like that a few times a week. And then
on his birthday, she gave it to him. He unwrapped
it and he sat in the chair. He read the
whole thing in one sitting and he cried the entire time.
And this is Dave's best friend. And we said, Rob,
why did you cry? And he said, because as a man,
(36:05):
I feel like I'm always failing. I feel like I'm
failing as a father and as a dad. I feel
like I'm not good enough. And by her words, I
am so motivated to be that man, to be better
than what I am right now. Like, I want to
do anything in the world for Michelle and the girls
because of her words brought me such life.
S6 (36:25):
Wow.
S2 (36:25):
And that's exactly what we're talking about. Those are words
of life. They they help our spouse to become the
person God created them to be.
S5 (36:35):
Dave, let's talk about to do list which many wives
make for their husbands. How do most men see those lists?
How do they take those lists that the wife gives them?
S3 (36:48):
Well, I wish I could say we love the honeydew list.
S6 (36:52):
I love the list. It has made those lists.
S3 (36:55):
I think she has one for me right now. When
we get done with this.
S6 (36:58):
Totally.
S3 (36:59):
Interviews. Like we got stuff. I mean, in some ways
I hate him and in other ways I know that
it really makes her feel loved and seen and appreciated
and a priority. Even though I hate them, I think
I need to do them. And the thing I hate
is when, you know, she asked me to do something
(37:20):
and I think it means today or in the next
five hours, and she meant in the next five minutes
and she comes walking back in, what are you doing
watching the ESPN? I'm like, oh, you wanted that done
right now.
S6 (37:34):
And.
S2 (37:34):
Then I'll roll my eyes and go do it myself.
S6 (37:37):
That's that way of being.
S3 (37:39):
And so I would say to the guys, man, if
you can check off 1 or 2 every day, you're.
S6 (37:44):
Every.
S2 (37:45):
Day, how about once a like.
S3 (37:47):
Okay, okay, I'm going back to that once a week.
That's even.
S6 (37:50):
Better. Well Gary.
S2 (37:51):
What do you think of the honey do list?
S5 (37:54):
Well, I think it can be helpful because at least
it tells the husband what would be meaningful to her,
you know? So in that sense, it's good. But I
also understand how men can get overwhelmed when he just
gets list after list after list. And he's got so
many other things to do that he feels frustrated, you know.
So there's pros and cons to that.
S6 (38:14):
Yeah.
S3 (38:15):
Ann's love language is acts of service. So I guess.
S6 (38:18):
I gotta get.
S3 (38:19):
I gotta get off the couch and do.
S6 (38:20):
It. Gary, I will say this.
S2 (38:22):
I thought this was interesting. We talked to we were
on a podcast yesterday where this man said, you know, I,
my wife gave me this list and I came in.
He said, I worked for hours, I came in, it
was the hot Texas sun, pure sweat, feeling really good
about what I accomplished. And my wife said, but you
didn't do that, this one thing on the list. And
(38:45):
he said it was like she popped all the air
out of my being because she didn't notice the things
I did. Right. She just pointed out what I didn't do.
And so I think with our list, we have to
be really careful with that of how we encourage them
and maybe ask, how, how can I help you with
the list? Maybe that would be a good question.
S6 (39:05):
Yeah.
S5 (39:06):
No respect. Respect is crucial to marriages. So how do
couples rebuild respect after? There's been a lot of negative
things spoken to each other?
S3 (39:20):
I mean, I would say on one side, if they're
if you are disrespecting your your husband or your wife
because of something they've done, uh, where they've betrayed your
vows or broken a promise, then it's on the spouse
who who sinned or broke that promise to earn back.
S2 (39:37):
Is that trust or respect?
S3 (39:39):
Trust and respect. It's it's very closely the same thing.
But yeah, it's on me if I've broken the trust,
I've got, you know, trust is built over decades and
it's gone in a second and it's going to take,
you know, days, months, years to rebuild. So you build
that back. And in some ways you give respect and
(40:00):
love unconditionally. But it's also, you know, I would say
to the husbands, be respectable so that she gives it
in in one sense. And I'd also say to us, well,
we give it as well, because God gives us what
we don't deserve. So we we bless. But we actually
you want to live in a way that is respectable
or trustable.
S2 (40:21):
And you do that. Dave. One of the things and
that word today feels rebellious. It feels like we're in
a culture in a time where respect feels like it
should be earned. I'm not going to give it to
you unless you earn it. But really, God does continue
to love us, pursue us, respect us, and lift us
up in the midst of our sin. And so when
(40:42):
I was on that journey with, I felt like I
had not been respecting Dave in a good way, especially
through my words. And so when I started out with
a simple thank you, I'm going to start just thanking
him because I don't want to fake it. I'm not
going to say, oh, you're blah blah blah. So I
can start with just saying thank you. And Gary, it's
so embarrassing when I started thinking, why don't I want
(41:04):
to thank him? It was because here's what I thought.
This is so wrong. I thought, well, who thanks me?
I do everything around here and nobody notices or thanks me.
Do you hear the pride and arrogance in that? And
so I remember I was really starting to try to
work on this. And so I said to Dave, this
is before we were eating. The boys were at the table.
(41:25):
Before we prayed. I said, hey guys, before we pray
and eat, I just want to say this, Dave, thank
you for working so hard. You work super hard. You
are so good at what you do and you're providing
really for our family through your tenacity of working hard
and providing. Thank you for that. Which to Dave, felt
(41:45):
like respect.
S3 (41:47):
Oh, I mean, I knew she was looking at Gary's
book and doing what.
S6 (41:51):
It said in there. You know.
S3 (41:53):
It was on the kitchen hutch right behind her, but
it didn't matter.
S6 (41:57):
I was like.
S3 (41:58):
My chest started puffing up. I'm like, I am. I
am the man, aren't I? Of course I didn't say that,
but I, I was shocked at how good it made
me feel. And I'm just telling you, no wives here
that that's what happens inside your man when you do this.
And that's why I wrote in Ann's book. It's really
her book. And at the end of each chapter I said, hey, ladies,
(42:19):
here's a man's or a husband's perspective that, you know,
will maybe help, you know, understand your your husband's perspective.
S2 (42:26):
Well, and I've had women come up to me to say,
and you don't understand who I'm married to. He's not abusive,
but there's nothing to cheer about. I see nothing, which
is super sad, but it's the reality of their situation.
And what I say to them is, I say this
man that you're married to, first of all, you married
him because you probably saw something in him that you liked.
(42:49):
And so go back to those things. And I did,
and I said this, he's made in the image of God,
and God is cheering for every single one of us,
every single day. There's something in him because he's made
in the image of God that you can cheer for.
you can see. And so start looking for those little things.
You don't have to fake it. You're not saying it
(43:10):
to manipulate them. But just ask God. Our son calls it.
Who's a preacher? God. Goggles. Put on your god goggles
so you can see your spouse the way God sees them.
And then you'll begin to say the things to them
that God says to them. But let me say this
if you are not locked in with Jesus and surrender
being filled with the spirit every.
S6 (43:30):
Day, this is possible.
S2 (43:31):
It's not going to happen. You'll do it for about
three days and give up, because this is a work
of God's Spirit in us that's transforming us.
S6 (43:40):
Yeah.
S5 (43:41):
You mentioned this before, but what is the role of
prayer in a marriage?
S2 (43:47):
Well, you've probably seen this stat, Gary, and you've probably
talked about it on your program, but the divorce rate
in our culture is one out of every two. But
the divorce rate with couples who pray together on a
regular basis is one in every Thousand and 52.
S3 (44:05):
No. 1152.
S2 (44:07):
Oh, that's even better.
S3 (44:09):
Yeah. I mean, it's staggering to understand that. And as
you know, when you're praying alone, that's great. It's awesome.
But then when you go, we call it go vertical
with Jesus, with God together with your spouse. It doesn't
even have to be every day. But on a regular basis,
there's something that happens that's oneness together again, do it.
(44:31):
You know, alone. But man, when you bring your spouse
in together, we we've many times spent years on our
knees at the foot of our bed before we crawled
in bed at night. We, in fact, we need to
get back into doing that.
S2 (44:43):
But it's hard to pray when you're mad at each other.
S6 (44:45):
Oh, I do not want to pray.
S2 (44:47):
At.
S6 (44:47):
All.
S2 (44:48):
And sometimes if Dave would fall asleep, I would think, well,
he's falling asleep. It's his job to pray. You know,
I would think something like that. And can I just
say Satan wins in those situations? Because if one person prays,
maybe you have a spouse that won't pray. It's okay
even if you say, Jesus, thank you for today. We
need your help. That could be your prayer every night.
(45:10):
Or Lord, thank you for my spouse even though they're
driving you crazy. Thank you for my spouse. Help us. Amen.
It could be that quick. And that is so powerful.
And it changes our marriages, our legacies in a miraculous way.
S6 (45:26):
Yeah.
S5 (45:28):
And talk to the wife who's listening, who says I'm
on board? I want to relate better with my husband.
What advice would you give her?
S2 (45:38):
Well, first of all, if you're saying that I'm so
excited for you. Like, this is a journey that for
me has taken years. And I get like, teary thinking
about where I would be had I not gone on
this journey. And I think Dave would have just we
would have just been so isolated because he would have
continued to move away and push away from me. We'd
(46:00):
be in the same house, but we'd be very separate
in our intimacy with our relationship. And so way to go.
And I would say cling to Jesus as Dave said already, like,
get in a church. Find some women. I want to
put this. I'm we're trying to create this, um, book
into a small group. Even if you hear this and
(46:20):
you think I want to do this, get a friend,
grab a friend and say, do you want to read
this with me together? And let's commit to being in
the word. It could be that you're on a Bible app,
and if you have little kids, listen to the scriptures
every day. Just put it on the car. Put it
somewhere that you can hear, even if it's a few
verses a day, and then go through this with somebody
(46:41):
and ask God to change you, because it's easy to
see as the as Matthew in the Bible says, the
splinter in our spouse's eye when we might have a
log in our own eye. So ask God, like God,
change me. I lay down my life, pride, my arrogance,
and Lord, I'm going to pick up a mirror, and
I want to change the things that you want to
(47:02):
change in me and help me to learn to speak
life to my husband and also to my kids.
S3 (47:08):
You know, and I would just add, I think if
this happens and I'm not talking just about wife speaking
life to their husbands, but husbands speaking life to.
S6 (47:16):
Their.
S3 (47:16):
Wives as well, I think it could create almost a
revival sense of the Christian family in the home and
a legacy. Your home would. The atmosphere will change and
your neighbors will be drawn to your backyard, to your
family room, because they sense something positive, something alive. They
(47:38):
don't even know it's Jesus.
S6 (47:40):
It's the.
S2 (47:40):
Gospel.
S3 (47:40):
But it'll point them to Jesus because there's there's there's life.
I think men come alive in the church when they
walk in the church. Coming out of a marriage in
their home where they feel believed in and seen and affirmed,
they walk in the church like, okay, what do you
what do you need me to do? I'm a I'm
a powerful man. I how do I know that? My
wife just told me that all week. You know, there's
(48:01):
something so powerful that happens in the soul of a
man when he comes alive because he has a woman
beside him that believes in him. And everything I'm saying goes,
goes the other way, too. When a wife feels seen
and believed by her man, she becomes the woman God
created to be. We have a powerful role in each
other's lives that we can use to build up or
(48:24):
tear down. And I'm just saying, God has given us this,
this influence in this power, especially you wives. Man, he
wants to do something powerful in and through you.
S5 (48:34):
Well, Dave and Anne, I want to thank you for
being with us today and thank you for writing this book.
I mean, you know, you've gone through it, you've lived it,
now you're writing it. And and in an effort to
help other people and I, I think this book is
going to help anyone who will pick it up and
read it. And I would encourage pastors and others to
let their congregations know about this book, because I think
(48:56):
it's dealing with really, really crucial issues in a marriage.
So again, thanks for all that you're doing and God
bless you.
S2 (49:05):
Thank you Gary. You're one of our great heroes.
S3 (49:08):
Yeah. We love.
S6 (49:09):
You and.
S3 (49:09):
Appreciate you. And thank you. You too Chris.
S4 (49:12):
What an encouraging conversation. Dave and Ann Wilson, thank you.
And don't miss the featured resource at Building Relationships How
to Speak Life to Your Husband. When all you want
to do is yell at him. Find out more at
building relationships.
S5 (49:28):
And next week. What can we learn from a dysfunctional
family in the Bible?
S1 (49:34):
Lessons from the life of Joseph are coming up in
one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team,
Steve Wick and Janice backing. 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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