Difficult Husbands, Unsubmissive Wives: Marriage Case Studies

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Welcome in to Think Deeper podcast. Jack Wilkie here, joined by Will Harab and my brother Joe Wilkie. We are presented by Focus Press. Check us out@focuspress.org this week we are not continuing is not exactly a series. But on the other hand, it is very much related to what we talked about a couple of weeks ago. We looked at the Proverbs 31 woman. Last week we looked at Proverbs advice and principles for men. But with that, we got a number of comments pointing to marriage. And obviously with the women, we were talking about them in a lot of ways that were related to marriage as the Proverbs 31 Woman was with the men. We were talking about their leadership and ways that had to do with their relationship in their marriage, in their home, as father, as husband, as everything they do there. But the dynamic between the two has not really come into that discussion just yet. And one of the things we want to do with this one is get very practical. We get messages, we see comments, we just see stuff around the Internet of challenges the couples face. And obviously Joe and his therapy work deals a lot with folks that they're just not relating well, that there's that ideal that we've talked about for men and for women that we talked about last week. Not everyone's doing that. There's a lot of couples falling short of that. There's a lot of men that are trying to get it right and their wife is not coming along. A lot of women trying to get it right and their husband's not coming along. And so that's where we want to go is like, what do you do if you're in that situation? We've got a few different scenarios. We've got some principles. We've got some just ideas, thoughts, practical stuff to work through on this one. So that's the angle for this week's episode.
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I'm going to say this right off the bat. If you have a spouse who is really working on being that, you know, and pursuing the Proverbs 31, or a man that looks like maybe first Timothy 3 or looks like the men we see in Proverbs, take some time to thank them, take some time to praise them, to honor that, to say thank you for those things and be grateful for somebody that's pushing themselves to be better, because that is not always the case. And that's what we're getting into today is and we're not talking about people who are striving for that and falling short. Man, he just can't get over this one thing, but he's a really good dad. He's a really good XYZ or she's a, she's a great mom in so many areas, but she's really struggling in this area. Yeah, you know, there may be some things that come here there. What we're really talking about though, is those that have more of a heart issue, those that don't really want to engage with these things. They are, you know, maybe there's some laziness there, maybe there's some just digging your heels in and some obstinate there. And so they really don't want to look like what we're seeing in scripture. Those are the really difficult cases. And again, Jack, as you said, that's the nitty gritty we want to get down into. So thank the spouses if you have one that is really striving for that. But if you don't, that's, that's what we're going to try to get into today. But will. Any opening thoughts?
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Yeah. So Joe and I actually just recorded an episode for our other podcast about divorces and how they're kind of becoming a little bit more common and not just more common and they've been, they've been common for a long time but like little bit more normalized. Like there's a casualness associated with people when they divorce now. Like, oh, we're still going to be friends and you know, we're excited to take on this co parenting journey together type of thing. And one of the things we discuss is that, man, ending your marriage should have a pretty serious gravity to it. You know, using the word divorce and actually going through the process, that should, should be really a life altering, I hate to be dramatic, a life wrecking decision and period in your life. And I think the reason for that, the reason why it should be that and that we should be raising the gravity with the seriousness of our marriages and divorces. Because healthy and happy marriages, man, they're the backbone of society. Like, they're the cornerstone of the church. They are. You think about a church full of happy and healthy marriages. That's a church that is getting a lot of things done. That is a church that is spiritually minded. That's a church that's raising faithful children. That's a church that carrying out the Great Commission, like all these things. And then you think about a church where it's the opposite kind of stale marriages, you know, they might, you know, they still live together, but you know, they're, you can't really, they probably don't get along that well. Some of these issues that we're going to get into, they're, you know, you know, fighting inwardly. The home is not a peaceful place because the marriage is kind of in shambles. What kind of production you think that church has, what kind of disciples you think that church is raising? And so it goes without saying that once again, happy and healthy marriages are just so vital to all of. Into every aspect of life. And for anybody who's listening, who first of all is in a happy and healthy marriage, then you know, just how make or break for your life it can be. It can make your life or it can break your life. And so, yeah, I mean, some of the stuff we're going to talk about in this episode is going to be a bit kind of gloomy sounding like Johnny Raincloud, so to speak, because we're going to have to talk about some of the negative things. But I would just want to add the perspective as we start that it's in pursuit and it's in interest of having happy and healthy marriages for our churches so that we can once again raise faithful disciples so that we can carry out the Great Commission, so that we can just enjoy life. I think that's another thing that we miss sometimes. God wants us to enjoy our lives. And a happy, healthy marriage is really the first step to that. So those are just my introductory thoughts that I have there.
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Yeah, it's a good point, because I think this happens a lot of times is people get married hoping that it's going to be like this Cadillac experience, and it ends up being like the 1997 Dodge Neon that can get you to working back, but, like, you're keeping it patched together.
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Like it.
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It functions, but barely. And especially for Christian couples who don't want a divorce, they just get stuck there and they just assume it's going to always be that way. Well, as Will is saying, happiness is out there. It's going to take a lot of love, bearing all things love, you know, sticking it out and enduring. And it's not always sunshine and roses and whatever the old saying is, but. Well, as we talk about headship and submission and roles and things that we like to talk about, these are the questions that come up. Is like to ask a question, what about this? What about that? Well, that doesn't happen in my life. Well, it can, but it's a long journey. Go ahead.
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Sorry, Jack. We've been podcasting for five years, and I thought I could tell you were wrapping up.
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Sorry.
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Sorry.
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And I was just misguided. You were not wrapping up. So I apologize. Here's a question I want to add. I'm curious yalls thoughts and then we can get into some of this stuff. Do you. Would you say marriage is difficult or easy? You hear that a lot. When. So when young people are getting married, I remember this when I was engaged, you'll have some people that you really have people on both sides of the equation. You'll have one side of people that will say, oh man, you know, congratulations. You know, marriage is hard. You got to make sure you work at it. It's really hard. And then you'll have other people who will say, you know, kind of. They don't really give any indication that it is difficult. It's. Man, marriage is just amazing. It's easy, it's simple. I'm curious where you guys fall on that. Like if you had to pick one, I think probably the easy maybe cop out answer is, you know, there's times that are hard and there's times that are easy. Everybody knows that. But overall, like, do you think that we over complicate some of this stuff and it truly is easier than people or do you think maybe we undersell sometimes to young people who are getting. Getting married how difficult it is and the, you know, the, the amount of work that it takes. Like, I can tell you the way, the direction that I lean based on my very limited, albeit seven years of marriage and. But the way that I want to pass it on to my kids. I'll be honest, I don't want to talk about how hard it is. You know, I don't want to not like, not share within the difficulties. But like my personal take is that overall, most of the time, if you marry the right person, I think that's the key. Most of the marriage can be pretty easy with some rough patches along the way. But I'm curious where y' all fall on that. Like overall, if you had to pick one, is marriage hard or is it easy?
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Well, I think there's. There are so many factors in overall I'd say, I mean, I feel like marriage is fairly easy. On the other hand, you think about this. So even Jack for you, you were 27, 6, almost 7, 26 getting married. I was 22, Will, you were 19.
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Right.
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So that doesn't necessarily spell out ease versus not ease, but there is a level of Jack you had lived on. Know you had a house, you were in Texas. So integrating somebody into your life is more of a challenge than what I had, which Went from mom and dad's house straight into marriage, you know, and started the life off that way where I didn't have things I was breaking down. So I think everybody has a different journey to get there, different things that they have to unlearn in order to show up better in their marriage. Everybody has different. There's my buzzword, attachment, right? Everybody's got some of those things. By and large, though, I'm with you, Will, in the fact that I think marriage can be easy and I think it can be really good. And sometimes, you know, to your point, it's somewhat of a cop out to say what's easy and hard. But it is true that there are times of difficulty, by and large, as I've often talked about, when you lean into one another, rather than leaning out toward your parents or your family or towards secular sources, you get on Reddit to try to understand certain things. That's all leaning out. When you lean into your spouse in these moments of struggle, things get easier, things get better. You get used to navigating life together. And so marriage gets great. What we're talking about today, Jack, obviously I'll pass it to you here and get your answer on that. But what we're talking about today is exactly from that point is those that make marriage very difficult based off of leaning out, based off of not feeling that they can rely on the other person. Some people lean in and the other person leans out and they're just parallel the entire time and they never get to connect in marriage. That's what makes it challenging, is when one steps away and is not as engaged or is very cut off or whatever it may be. But if you have two open people, marriage should be easy. In my opinion, it should be, by and large, yeah, again, moments of difficulty. But Jack, I'm curious your thoughts, your perspective on that.
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I think building the framework is hard. And once you've got it built, it's easy. Now to the point you guys are making, if you had good parents and your spouse has good parents, your framework is largely built for you. And so it's just so much easier when you come into that. You bring baggage, you bring difficulties, you bring the attachment things, difficulty accepting love and things like that, you've got to work through that and get to the framework and especially the roles framework, all of that stuff that might take years to get right. And then once you do, then you have a pretty seamless workflow of like, you know, who's doing what, you know, what you expect from each other, things like that. You're working on it, but it's not. It's maintenance rather than gutting and overhauling the whole thing all the time. And so that building that framework again is. It's hard. And if your parents did it for you for 20 years, then it's not as hard, but it was hard work for them. And so somebody's got to put in the work. And once you put in the work, it runs smoothly. I mean, it's like a business. Like, all right, that's my take on it. It's a really interesting question.
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That's a very interesting question. But as we come around to it, some people have it hard. It's the Dodge Neon. It's the, you know, it's serviceable. We are not of the opinion that you should just. We're of the opinion you stay together. I don't think divorce is really. Should be an option. We need to abolish the word altogether. So we're gonna get that out the way off the top. We're never going to tell people to divorce because I think God hates divorce, obviously, as it talks about Malachi 2 16. But we know there are difficulties. I can't stand to see marriages where they're miserable for 30 years, but they won't divorce because it's a Christian thing to do. It's like, well, that's not God.
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And that's what I'm saying about like the. You wanted a Cadillac, you didn't get it. Oh, well, I'm just stuck with this. Like, no, it can be improved.
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So let's use that as the launching point here to get into some of these things. I'm curious. There's a few. We can start with the things that we, you know, we can get into. The one that maybe intrigues me most is a. We talk a lot about the unsubmissive wife. We're going to get to that in a second. I'm curious about the. Let's start with the lazy husband first. The husband who doesn't know that it could be a Cadillac, that he could have something more. He doesn't work toward it. I think you can see both sides, actually. A lazy husband and lazy wife. So you guys can start with whatever, whatever you want because they are different challenges.
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Well, I think. And I kind of reordered them on the outline here because I think these two up front are the most common ones. And so for time's sake, it's probably good to start there, even though content wise, sometimes you want to save them now. Let's. Let's put the time into this. But the passive, lazy husband, that is a problem. It's something you see. You see it in Christian circles where mom is kind of leading them to church. You see it very much in homeschool circles where mom's driving the train at home. And so I think that's a good one to start with.
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Yeah, yeah. So exactly as you said. You see this specifically in some of the circles of those that listen to us, I think. And I'm not calling out the husbands per se, we got a lot of great guys listening to us. But that concept of the mom who's going to kind of run the show. And you see this a lot in homeschooling, the homeschooling world, where you'd go to the Czech conference, the Christian Home Educators Colorado. Right. You know, big conference where we grew up and it's mom's galore and you had some dads that would kind of be maybe pushing the stroller or whatever. But by and large you could tell moms were buying the curriculum because they're obviously treating the kids and moms are getting pumped about the speakers and moms are having the conversations in the hallway and like it was kind of a mother led movement. But you see this, and you see this sometimes in the church where the guy just kind of checks out. The woman gets it. Jack, you had a good article on mental load recently. And I think the mental load for a woman who has a lazy husband is increasing dramatically because she cannot rely on her husband to step into those roles. And so like, practically speaking, we're talking about the husband who doesn't ever help out at home or who doesn't ever take any, you know, any consideration of the kids. He's not leading his family spiritually. There. There's no opening of the Bible. There's no praying with his wife. There's no helping her out on the weekends. He kind of does his own thing. He's checked out to some degree and he's just not working on himself as a man. He's not leading her at all. He's not really helping with the kids. He's by and large checked out doing his own thing. So thoughts on this, fellows? And what do you tell that woman? And how does the church maybe support that situation? What recourse is there when there is a lazy husband involved who looks nothing like what we talked about last week?
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Yeah, I think, man, this can manifest itself in so many ways because as I was thinking about this word lazy, like, are we talking about lazy even in working for a living and being a provider, like barely doing the bare minimum at work, not putting in any extra hours, and so the family can barely afford food. That's not always the case. Sometimes the husband holds down his job just fine and exhibits maybe not stellar work ethic, but a adequate work ethic at work. And then comes home and that's where the laziness kicks up. It's, you know, four hours of video games every night. It's, as you spoke to kind of, no, no assistance with the kids, not gonna touch any kind of project around the home. Certainly not going to, you know, study the Bible, either solo or with his family. And so that, I guess that's kind of what I'll speak to more because I do think that that can be fairly common sometimes. Man. So to me, the biggest missing factor here, and as you talk about Joe, what is the woman's recourse? It's difficult because obviously First Peter 3 would, you know, certainly not even imply, like it says pretty clearly, that they are still to submit. There is still a hierarchy that exists regardless of the husband's behavior. And it talks about that her chaste behavior might win him over. To me, the fundamental problem exists with a husband like this in somebody needs to ask the husband, what are you here for? Why are you here? What are you doing with your life? What is your purpose? Why do you wake up every day with the lazy husband? For me, from my experience, what I would see is they are waking up, they are trying to get through the week, first of all for themselves, but also for kind of short term dopamine hit pleasure. Whether it's the video games or I just want to come home and relax or, man, I can't wait to watch the game or whatever it is.
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They're aimless.
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They're. Yeah, aimless. Pretty early on. One of the things I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I think all three of us would say this. Like, you know, especially once you have kids, you kind of realize pretty quickly, oh, the days of I got to get my responsibilities done so I can have the next six hours to do whatever I want. Those days are over. Like, there is a fundamental. Again, the difference is this man needs to understand. Your days and your weeks now revolve around discipling your family, keeping your household running, obviously, keeping food on the table and all those things. And so that's the lens through which you need to look at your life. The lazy guy's not looking at it through that lens. He's looking at it through again, how soon can I get in front of the tv? How soon can I go hang out with the boys or whatever it is? Again, so many different examples we could use here. And so that's where somebody. And again, it's difficult to say that. I think the wife can certainly have these conversations with her husband in a respectful manner. But a mentor, an elder, the dad of the man needs to, you know, step in and say again, why are you here? Like, what are. What are you doing specifically to, you know, in your life? What is your purpose? Your purpose is not to, again, just enjoy yourself. And so, you know, you might say, well, that's easier said than done than to just kind of like most guys are not going to, you know, instantly just, oh, okay, cool. I guess I'll just completely change the way I do things. But I think as we just kind of get started with this one, that's what, that's what the fundamental misunderstanding is, is why am I here? Why do I wake up? Why do I go to work? What do I do when I come home? Like, what's the purpose of my life? Making sure that they know their purpose, I think, is key. Jack, what thoughts? Oh, go ahead, Joe.
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Sorry, Joe.
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I was just gonna say they're boys, not men. You know, the laziness that's. That's a kid that is just trying to skirt around work rather than understanding responsibility. To your point, Will, they haven't necessarily grown up. Jack, I'm curious your thoughts. And then I got another. I got a question I want to ask you guys, but go for it.
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Hey, guys. Jack here. I'm excited to tell you about my new book. You are the Christian's Assurance. For too many years, I have run into Christians who aren't really sure where they're gonna go when they die. They don't feel like they can say that they are righteous. And so I set out to write a book to give you confidence and assurance of your salvation. It's laid out in 13 chapters for churches to study as a Bible class with discussion questions at the end of each chapter. And of course, you can just read it on your own either. It's for individuals, it's for classes. However you would like to approach it, you can get it on Amazon, you can get it on Focus Press. We offer discounts for group sales of it in groups of 5 and 10 on Focus Press. So if you're going to study it with your church, be sure to check that out and get that. Deal. So be sure to check out. You are Saved today once again on Amazon and focus. One thing I want to say for all of these applies to this one, but applies to all of them. Don't typecast the spouse. And if you're the woman going, yep, that's him. Yep, he's just this way. Start with gratitude. Be thankful for what they are doing. Like, you know, for Will's example, the guy that provides well but isn't bringing much of the other stuff. Be thankful for that. Because the easiest thing to do is really turn it into, this guy does nothing.
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Right.
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Well, that's not good. You know, be thankful for what you have and praise him for that and hold him up for that. And again, that applies to all of the ones we're going to talk about, of the wife you have, the husband you have. Be thankful for them and the good that they do. Focus on the good, but not to the point which you say, oh, and it's all good. It's fine. These problems are real. And this is what we're talking about, is trying to address them. One practical thing, obviously prayer is one. Pray that he would have his eyes open and that kind of thing. One of the ones, and this might be another one that fits for all of the things we talk about, she should make a point out of socializing with couples that are doing it well, especially older ones, of if there's say, an elder and his wife in the church where he really is a good guy or whatever. If she just builds a friendship with that elder's wife and they as a couple are hanging out with them more. You want to go for like the osmosis thing. You want to go get yourself around people. Because one of the things that guys do a lot of times, let's say he is the video games guy, not doing anything around the house, not leading spiritually or whatever, but he's on video games all the time. He probably has a group of buddies, guys that he gets online with to play against or whatever. That's his circle. People don't rise out of their circle. People. That. That old saying about you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time around. She can help him with that by getting him around other people. That is not a nagging thing. That is not a subversive. She's taking over the family thing. That is.
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She's not trying to usurp him through that.
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Right, right. It's just we're gonna people. Because the extreme opposite of that would be like, you're not allowed to talk to those friends anymore ever. She can't make that call. On the other hand, just saying, hey, maybe if we get around more better Christian couples. Now, that's not an overnight fix. None of these are overnight fixes. But I do think on a practical tip, that is something I would tell a woman to do is like, look for Christian marriages, especially older ones, that you like the way that they're going and get around the husband's behavior. I would say as well, you like the husband's behavior. And for you yourself, you want to be more like that woman. Right? And so you're, you're, you expect both of you to benefit from that. Draw near to them like that. That is. And so again, none of these are silver bullets, but as far as things you can do, I think that's a really profitable one.
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That's a great point. Sometimes you're going to have the guy that.
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No, you're not muted. You were just delayed. Sorry, go ahead.
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Well, sometimes you got the guy who just kind of pushes back.
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He's.
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He's a, an introvert pushes back on being around a lot of other people. And that can be a really difficult thing, by and large. I think it's a great point of what you're saying. One of the things I was going to say is I think going back to the boyhood part, there's a reason that First Peter 3 talks about and we're going to. This will show up, you know, probably throughout the episode. But There's a reason first Peter 3 is it tells women to be chaste and quiet. I'm curious to get your guys thoughts on that. Why is that the solution? I have thoughts on it, but I'm curious to your point or your guys thoughts on it, why is that a solution to a husband who is disobedient to the word, somebody who's not stepping up in the ways that he's supposed to. Somebody who may be, you know, mistreating you. But by and large, in this context, as we're talking, the lazy husband, the one who's just not leading in any way. Scripture would have the woman be chaste and be quiet, and that spirit's gonna lead through. Why? I think there's reasons for this, but I'm curious your thoughts.
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I see it this way, the one about not returning evil for evil and heaping coals on their head. When somebody just comes and screams at you in the face and you go, all right, thanks. Have a nice day. You know how that makes them feel like they realize, oh, man, I messed up. If the guy is not Leading. And his wife is going, yes, dear, I got you. I'm taking care of my stuff. I love you. I'm gonna honor you. All that stuff, it makes it stand out a lot more when he does. Now, not every guy is gonna take that hint, but I do think it can have that effect.
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I think that's well said. This is incredibly hard to do.
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Yeah.
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When you think about even like business relationships or something, if something is not going the way that it's supposed to, for you to just take it and, you know, kill him with kindness, as they say, is very difficult, you know, and that's a personality flaw of mine, probably, is that I want people to know, hey, this, this is not correct.
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You can't.
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Do you know what I mean? Like, I want it to be very crystal clear. I don't want to, you know, have any. Any people to have any questions about that. However, I think what Jack is saying is correct in that the reason why killing with kindness generally works is because it causes a brief moment of self refle. If you get into a shouting match or you get into a. She starts to nag or, you know, she really just starts to kind of hammer him, guess what? That's almost never going to result in him, you know, sitting down and going, man, you know what? I haven't thought of that actually. You know, man, let me, Let me sit and think. No, that's just going to. Tensions are going to raise. He's going to get more frustrated, probably. Behaviors probably get worse. And this, I would say this is the same vice versa. But my point is that self, that moment of self reflection to Jack's point of, you know, him stepping back and going, man, she's act. She's, you know, behaving in this way. She's not nagging me. She's not pushing. It's really difficult to say that that's going to happen 100% of the time, but that would be my answer. Joe, again, I guess I'm just kind of giving a different painting in a different light than Jack did is just that. That word of reflection, like, it gives the man the, you know, ability to go, hang on a second. This, you know, whereas maybe he would expect something different. When he doesn't get what he expects, that's when the reflection comes. So that would be just kind of my answer to that. What about you? What would you say to that?
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Yeah, I agree with both of those. There's a level of the egg on the face that, you know, when you're doing shameful things and she just takes it and kind of quietly reflects that. You go, oh, man. You know, and I think there's that. I think there's very much something to treating him like the man you want him to be, the man that he is becoming. Right. And this concept of the quiet and chasteness, like, think of going back to the boy point. I stick on that because I work with this a lot, and I see that a lot of times this comes from father wounds. The lazy guys. It goes to your will of. They're just aimless. They are. They don't really know what they're doing. They don't know what masculinity looks like, what manhood looks like, what leadership looks like. And they're either too scared to do it, and then that masquerades as laziness because they just don't want to step up and do anything.
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Or sometimes adolescent fun.
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Exactly. They're chasing the other things. They're chasing something that is going to give them that quick dopamine rush as you guys both. Got it. But when she treats him in a positive way, when she treats him in a way that is thanking him for the ways that he stepped up, she's praising him for the areas that he is working on or. And this may be really tough to do, you may be really upset with your husband, but when you are able to step back and look at him as a whole and say, I really appreciated when you did this, it may be just taking in a few groceries from the car. Thank you so much for doing that. That makes him feel good. You get more of what you reward. Right. So the idea of rewarding your husband with these things, helping him step up into the manhood of like, that's what it looks like. I'm leading, I'm helping. He. That's something that a man gets. When we lead and when we're doing something that is masculine, we feel good internally. Nobody has to tell you, hey, good job on that one. It's like, I already. I know. Thank you. You know, I know that's a good job. And yeah, we try to be humble and whatnot, but that already feels good as a man. So when a wife can point to those things not through a nagging spirit, but through a really kind and gentle spirit trying to help her husband reach up to those that next level and help him get out of laziness and help him see what it looks like to be a man who gets the reward, not who just gets nagged. The more he does, the more he gets nagged. Guess what he's not going to do. You know, he's not going to want to do more. Whereas every time he steps into one little. One more thing, one more thing, he goes to church when he hasn't been going to church. Thank you so much for coming to church today. That meant the world to me. He starts to feel better at, I know what my wife wants. I know how to please her, and I know what it looks like to be a man. So in my opinion, I think that's why scripture speaks to don't try to beat this out of him. Reward him through the quiet, the chasteness and leading him toward it and the respect given that Sarah calls Abraham Lord. There's respect given because it's about helping him be the man that he needs to be.
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So there's a story that I think will be a nice transition point between the wife of the passive husband and the next one we're going to look at, which is the domineering wife, the unsubmissive wife. Tim and Kathy Keller wrote a famous book on marriage, and they tell a story where he was kind of being a workaholic, and she had complained to him about it and wasn't getting through to him. And so he comes home from work one day, I guess late at night, you know, like after more long work, and she's sitting there with a hammer and the china they got as a wedding gift and smashes a dish and smashes another one. Like, what are you doing? Well, this is what you're doing. I told you. You're destroying our family with your work smashes. This is what you're doing to our marriage or whatever. And of course they're saying, all right, he got through to her, she got through to him. And, okay, this is that serious. I didn't realize it. That's just wrong.
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But people are writing a marriage book, right?
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And that's. That's looked at as, okay, you do the big demonstration kind of thing. Like, I'm sorry, where do you.
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The first Peter tantrum in the grocery store aisle.
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And the lesson always is, when you give into a temper tantrum, you lost. Right? Like, the kid won and the kid
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knows they won't wear the pants to the family.
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I'm to cut the Right, Right, Exactly. And so The First Peter 3 you guys are talking about of, like a quiet and chaste submissive spirit. That's just not that. And so that is sometimes what you have happen is the woman, like, you say, I'm the captain now. I'm driving the ship. I'm gonna get you to do what I think you should do. And all of the. Whether it's passive aggressive and dropping hints or it's that, and I'm gonna literally, you know, almost hit you over the head with it. That's not good. This is one of the biggest ones of our day is the unsubmissive wife. Is the wife that when he makes a decision, she decides whether she likes the decision or not. Like, then who's actually leading the family. That's, you know. Well, I'm not going to go along with that one. Like, unless it's directly a sin to do it. If he's telling you to drive the getaway cars, he robs the bank, okay, you can say no to that one. But he makes a decision about whatever it may be, whether it's a good one or like it. There's Nothing in Ephesians 5 or 1st Peter 3 that says Submit if you like what he says. So the guy. Now we're kind of changing the perspective here. For the guy who has that wife, that is just not doing what he says. That's undermining him. Joe, you brought up, like, kind of turning the kids against him. There's some really, these bad things that happen. What is his recourse? What are practical things he can do?
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You want to go first, Joe? You want me to go?
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Either one. I talked a bunch.
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I'll go. I mean, you're way more qualified to discuss this than I am, so I'll be brief. There's a couple things that come to mind here for me. As we've said before, man, the longer you go into marriage, kind of allowing this to be the just standard in your marriage. Again, as Jack said, you make the decision, and then she just determines how she likes it. And then that's how the rest of the decision goes. The longer you allow that to happen, the tougher this is going to be to change. But the first. First thing I'll say is, if you do decide, hey, this is something that's not going to work in our marriage. I do think, obviously, bringing it up to her and communicating with her about it. But also you're going to have to get very comfortable with passive aggressiveness. And when I say comfortable with it, like, don't let that make you change your mind. Like, when she starts to, you know, drop the subtle passive aggressiveness, you just kind of kowtow and say, okay, fine, whatever. You're gonna have to get very. You're gonna have to get very comfortable. So One unique thing about me, again, maybe a character flaw. I'm just sharing all the character flaws that I have today. One of the things I can't. I can't stand when people do is compliment fish whenever they say things that they're very clearly trying to get you to. You know, I'm no good at this or whatever. One of the things that I'll do is I'll just ignore it. Like, I just won't say anything. Like, they want you to. They want you to compliment them. And like, I just, I don't give into that silly example. What I mean, like, I'm kind of. In a similar way, if there's passive aggressiveness going on or passive aggression, I'm not sure what the term is. You know, you're just gonna have to get comfortable kind of ignoring it and saying, you know what? That's not gonna change my decision. That's not. I'm not gonna back down. I'm not gonna once again kind of kowtow to whatever it is that you want just because you're being passive aggressive. So that, that would be one thing that I would definitely say right away is if that has been the norm, again, I would. I'm a big believer in communication above all else. I think you as the husband need to communicate and say, hey, for both of us, we can't have a passive aggressive relationship. If you're upset with me, I want to know why, and I want to know it clearly and directly. No passive aggressiveness. But again, if that habit has been ingrained for 10 years, that's not going to be an overnight fix either. And so you're going to have to be very comfortable and not allow that to change your mind. And then the other, only other thing I'll say Joe, and then it's all you is you as a husband need to make sure that you have your stuff together. It's very all you. If you really want to change this dynamic in your household, it is so critical that you exhibit yourself as discipline in all these other areas, that you are, you know, diligently studying your Bible, that you are diligently pursuing God, that you are working hard at your job, that you are providing for the family. Well, that you are, you know, spending time with your family, showing up for the kids. Exactly. And not just spending hours and hours on your own hobbies. And like, I don't want. I hate to be the. I don't want to sound like the guy that's like, man, well, to fix the woman's problems, you just Got to fix the man's problem. That's not what I'm saying. But to truly turn this around, I do think a prerequisite, something that has to happen is that you have to be really well disciplined and buttoned up and not have a lot of missteps. Otherwise again, you're just going to delay the turning, the turning around of the situation. So, so curious your thoughts on what you're doing, what you would add.
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It's the biblical concept to take the plank out of your own eye. You know, you don't always have the plank in your eye, but it's always good to figure out what's there before you go. Take maybe even the plank in her eye. She may have a plank too. But you know what? Make sure you are getting yourself fixed the ducks in a row. So I think that's such a valuable point. Like you can rail against your wife at all you want of man. She's got to do this and she's doing this and you know, she just doesn't listen. She's. She's running me over, whatever it may be. Man, if you're leading the way that you're supposed to, leading yourself, leading your kids, helping step up in church, there's a time and place where she may come around to that. That's not a guarantee. It's not a guarantee. The goal that a woman wants is safety. When you've lost that and when you've lost the high ground, she doesn't actually feel safe. This is kind of a conundrum for women, is they. A lot of times in order to find safety, they don't trust their husband. They take the leadership position. But that's also not a place of safety because it puts them at the top. There's nobody protecting them in that space. And so they don't feel safe and the husband is below them and so he can't provide that safety. And so they either go find it somewhere else or they just live in this constant state of unsafety, lack of safety, which keeps her large and in charge in a lot of ways. And the guy just doesn't really know what to do against it. So to me, I think there's. Man, there's so many different and each situation is different. And I understand that. But by and large, I think the guy does have to have his ducks in a row. I think the woman, the man has to begin to push back on some of these things. There's an episode you and I did, Will, for Jim. We called it passing the test and we can't necessarily use the exact phrase
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of what other adults.
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But yeah, there's another. Exactly. Another word that goes before that. But we're just going to call it the test. Every woman does it. We've talked about it on this podcast, I think, but we mentioned it in passing. And every. Every woman, to some degree, does it. And there's a part of it that makes sense. It's a safety mechanism where she will test to see. Can she. And to me, smashing plates is a. That's a test. What are you going to do in this situation? And I don't think he passed the test, personally. I think he kind of capitulates. And some people may listen and go, well, that's ridiculous. You know, he should have been listening to her all along. And, okay, yeah, we can squabble about that at the end of the day. Don't ever be breaking dishes in the home. Like, that's. That's not the answer, I can tell you that. And so there's a test here. And you see, there's a lot of tests throughout somebody's marriage where Doug Wilson tells the story of, you know, showing up to the restaurant and you got this nice night planned. And she goes, I don't really want to go here. It's like it's her inserting going, you gonna do what I want? You gonna go where I want? And most guys, nice guys, go, yeah, okay. It's all about you. We're just trying to keep you happy. Boom, you've lost. And the reason why is because you just got swayed from the thing you were gonna do to keep her happy. Where does that end? That doesn't mean you never. You never do things to please your wife. It means you're looking for the moments where she's kind of testing the boundaries, testing the waters to see where this stands.
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Are you really in charge or no?
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Correct. Are you really in charge? And it's wise. It's a subconscious thing for her. It's wise to some degree to see, is he going to step up for me? Is he going to lead? Is he going to protect? Is he going to be the man that he needs to be? The laziness and the domineering go hand in hand a lot of the time, because the guy will check out, which is a form of laziness, and the woman will take on the entire mental load. You know, she'll take on a lot of things, and then she gets used to that. He's got to start stepping up in the other areas and then start stepping up in the marriage and calling out the little things he sees here there, like, hey, that's not okay. Hey, we got to make sure we're working on these things, and you got to be okay with the friction in the marriage for a long time. There will absolutely be friction. But I think he has to step in and start saying, I have been a bad leader. I have not, you know, I have not stepped up in the way that I've needed to. I have not created the safety for you. I'm going to own that. I'm going to repent of that. We're changing things going forward, and this is what it's going to look like. And he marches in there with a plan to try to fix the marriage, taking responsibility for the damage that he's caused, fully recognizing that she's caused a lot of damage, too. But that will come in time as he leads her out of that. So that's a preliminary. There's a lot of nuance to that. But, Jack, what are your thoughts on
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that clear communication thing? That's one people always say, I'll just communicate. Communicate, okay, but, like, what are we talking about? And I think one of them. One of the things I like to say a lot and I think is helpful for us is, I want to be happy, you want to be happy, we want to be happy. Are we working towards that, or are we working towards getting our own way? And so you establish that up front. One of the other things is saying, we're not going to do this. This way of communicating, this way of talking, whatever. One of the classic tropes. What's wrong? Nothing. Or the passive aggressive thing, you call that out and say, we don't do passive aggressive. And. Well, like with Allison, my own wife. And I'm not throwing her under the bus here, but the. She doesn't do the nothing. Nothing's wrong because that's a lie. But what she'll do is say, I need some time to gather my thoughts. Cool.
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That's great.
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And then she'll come back around after an hour or two and go, all right, here's what the problem is. Here's what it is. But saying nothing and making me drag it out of you again, that puts you in control. That's not how this works. We're trying to solve a problem together, not you getting me to bow the knee like the passive aggressive. Will's talking about fishing for me to come in, and we're just not gonna do that.
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Giving up the moral high ground.
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Right. And so many couples like that's. A trope for a reason. Why does she say nothing's wrong? Because there's a sense of control in that, right? That she's got him now he's on his heels. Now he's got to come. Oh, no, no. What is it? Was it all right, upper hand? We're not doing. We're not doing the upper hand thing. We're solving this problem, and I'm leading us to solve this problem in a way that's good for both of us. And so you have to communicate on things like that. And like the test thing, like, no, honey, we're just not doing that. One of the other ones is. I think it's okay sometimes to say, you can't talk to me that way. You can't talk to me in front of the kids that way. You can't talk to me in front of your mom that way, or whatever. That's important to kind of set that up.
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I'm curious your guys thoughts on this. Do you think that because with there being a lot of marriages that have this problem, do you think the vast majority of marriages start out this way as far as, like, that kind of being the communication style, the way they solve problems, the nothing. Or do you think there are factors that contribute to a marriage that's eight years in where they have these problems? And what I'm trying to get at is like, again, most people's marriages are starting off on great footing. Their honeymoon phase, all those things. I'm not saying that in a derogatory way at all. I believe in the honeymoon phase and especially extending as much as possible. My point is, though, do you think that a woman or a husband and kind of these traits that they have are present at marriage, or do you think they develop them over time due to some factors that maybe we need to uncover? I don't know if my question's making sense, but, like, what are your thoughts on that?
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I think the pants, the. The test that happens long before you're married, and so many times the pants are seated to the woman in the relationship before they're even married. I think it is a testament to the woman's degree of sanctification, how far she takes it. There are women who will put their husbands through all kinds of tests at all times. Honey, I really want a Dr. Pepper float from, you know, Sonic at 11:30 at night. Go get it. Like they do, you know, the cravings thing or whatever. Like you're just messing with the guy and. And they don't. As Joe said, it's subconscious, they don't realize it. And the guy oh yes, ma', am. That's what I'm gonna do. I love my wife. I'm a good husband. And you see that they'll just, they will make him dance and jump through hoops and all that. There are other women that are better Christians that don't realize they've kind of taken the lead in the family. They're not going to do it that often. It's just when push comes to shove. And so to your question of like where does it start and things like that, I think there is a degree to which how bad it's going to get is how.
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How.
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What am I trying to say here? How, well, unsanctified she is if that is the case. And so those tests come early. And it's not that if the guy fails it once, he can't get it back, but it's once you, you have to roll the ball all the way back uphill as far as you've let it roll down. And a lot of times it gets rolling down pretty fast. But Joe, what are your thoughts? Hey folks, Jack here and I wanted to tell you about some restoration movement resources from our new sponsor. If you're interested in the history of the church, Cobb Publishing has got what you need. From general overviews like FW Maddox's Eternal the History of the Church of Christ to biographies of Restoration movement leaders like Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott Raccoon, John Smith and several others, you will be able to satisfy your church history fix@cobbpublishing.com shop. From classics like their bicentennial edition of Alexander Campbell's the Christian Baptist, the two volume Complete Alabama Restoration Journal Collection, or brand new books like out of the Women of the Restoration Movement, you will find the perfect gift for the restoration movement enthusiast on your gift list. Find reliable histories of the church@cobbpublishing.com shop that's Cobb C O B B publishing.com
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shop
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yeah, I think the sanctification point's key because that's Christ sanctifies the church. And I think there's a level of a man needing to sanctify his wife, you know, where he's really taken the lead and leading her toward Christ being more Christ like so. Yeah, I would agree with you. I had another thought but it died of loneliness. Will, what are your thoughts?
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I'll save my pregnancy cravings hot take for the deep end. I'm not going to share that one here. Well, I think you guys are articulating it. Well, I do agree with the idea that it's probably present before the marriage actually takes place. And it just kind of compounds on itself as the marriage continues. But one of the factors that I wanted to get to and Jack, you kind of alluded to this earlier is I do think it also matters what type of. What type of marriages and couples do they. Do you associate with early on in your marriage? It's really. It's a. It's a really fun thing when you're newly married with no kids to have younger married couples to hang out with. Joe, Alyssa, we kind of had that. I think you. We weren't living in the same place. It was kind of difficult. Like, it was not a. But it was. That was still a fun thing that we remember who you surround yourself with. Matt. And so if you're. And Jack, again, this is to your point earlier, but my point is, like, I think if you as a young married couple maybe don't exhibit a ton of this, but then you start hanging out, whether it's your parent, your own sets of parents, whether it's your, you know, again, younger couples that you hang out with, where this dynamic exists that is going to affect the way that you handle conflict. You know, I think that absolutely matters when it comes to, you know, what is your communication style like 10 years into marriage? Well, a lot of it is probably dependent on who have you associated with for the last seven, eight years, who do you look up to and spend time with, and how do they treat each other. And so that is a. That's an important factor, I think, as well.
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One of the things I was going to say. Sorry. Going back to it, I remembered my thought that came back to me on what you bring in a marriage. A lot of these things, I think the husband or the wife exacerbates something that was already previ. That was already there, already in place. You know, you hate being told what to do or xyz. You know, like, there's the rebellion there, and then the spouse comes in and starts doing it, and it just brings up all of these things. So most of the time, when I deal with marital conflict, when you really dig into why does that trigger you so much? Where's that coming from? Why is this a problem? What you realize is the spouse most of the time did not create the problem. It's the same thing when you get in with an abusive spouse. How many abusive. How many people marry abusive spouses who had abusive parents? A significant amount. Well, how'd you choose that? There's a subconscious reason why they Chose it. I don't think that's a conscious thing, but it's a familiarity.
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It's.
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They're drawn to the chaos or they're drawn to what they know they're drawn to. There's a comfort and familiarity, even though obviously abuse is not comfort. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying they're drawn to these things. And then we get into these same old patterns. How is a guy drawn to a domineering woman who's going to rule over him? How many of those have domineering moms? A decent amount of them. And so when you're looking at that, you go to the familiar and the spouse exacerbates what was already there. So one of the most difficult things in pulling people through this and helping them navigate these situations is being able to see, why did you make this decision in the first place? Why did you choose your spouse? Not that we're ever going against it. You're in the marriage. It's a covenant you made with God. We're staying there. We're going to make this work. But on the other hand, we have to know why we chose in the first place. What were we subconsciously looking for? And how did we get into these really negative patterns? Most of the time, everybody's happy at start because the attachment is new, the relationship is really fresh, and so it feels really good. You're meeting each other's needs. You quickly devolve into the things that you're used to. And if the things you're used to are really negative communication patterns, and she's domineering so as to create her own safety because she doesn't feel safe, and he's really lazy and passes the buck because he just wants to be a kid. Those patterns were set up when you were a kid. And you are just bringing those into the marriage, and you really got to be fixing those.
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Well, that's the. I'm sure I've used this illustration before, but like the Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares or the other one, the restaurant Impossible, where they go and they bring the chef expert in to revamp the restaurant, and he gives it an overhaul and gives it a new menu and retrains the chef and all that. And their success rate is like 5% where the restaurant goes under anyway most of the time because the people didn't leave their habits. And so with all of this, man, it takes commitment. It takes. And I've seen people, like, really start putting in the work, and then it gets hard and the wife digs her heels in. And it's like, well, I guess it was just supposed to be the other way. That was like, no, no, no, no. Like you. This is gonna be. You're in this for the long haul, and so that's important. Before we get off of this one, though, we gave all these tips. All right? Communicate clearly. Let's say the guy goes to his wife and says, we're not doing this. Don't disrespect me in front of the kids, or all that. And she just keeps doing it. It just hasn't changed. Because as Will mentioned this earlier, there is the trope of, well, if guys just do their part, the women. No, that's not always true. The women are. Might be in a rut of a habit and not want to give up the power they've got or whatever. What is his recourse then? If it goes from a passive aggressive power struggle to a straight up aggressive power struggle, like it's, you know, face to face, where this is how it's going to go. Now what? Now where does he stand?
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So I'll jump in real fast. I think a lot of women that are not. Once the guy's done everything we've talked about and she still digs her heels in, there's a level of trying to get across the concept that you can be wrong and I still love you. You can really tick me off. You can. You can be a. You know, you can be a problem at times, and I'm still here and I still love you and I still care. This is for him to communicate to her because a lot of times the woman doesn't want to give up this. Like, if she's wrong, it shows vulnerability and weakness, and she's afraid she's going to get hurt, and so she's just not going to be wrong. And so no matter how much she communicates, no matter how much she pushes, even if you get the elders involved, you go to the eldership and you go, man, what? What are we gonna do? Then it's their gang up on me. It goes into victim mode. You know, nobody understands. Yeah, it rarely works. Nobody understands my side of things or whatever it may be. And so we just stay stagnant. And the woman ends up holding on to that power because she's afraid of showing any vulnerability that I could potentially be wrong. Because if you admit I'm wrong in this area, the entire house of cards collapses. So they hardly ever, ever, ever admit that they're wrong. And if they do, it's in a cheesy way. So getting down to brass tacks. Yeah. I do think that getting people involved to the best of your ability In a Matthew 18 way, I think actually is appropriate. And having the elders try to navigate things and offer some therapy or offer some support, you know, to the couple as they know them very well, Lord willing, you know, that the elders are involved, I think that's one of the best things. If you can get them into marriage therapy with a Christian marriage therapist who's going to be able to see both sides clearly. That's kind of a gamble, though, so I'll be. I'll caution people on that one. It's very easy to take the woman's side and to have the man, you got to have somebody who's going to be able to see it from both sides, good and bad. So this is going to sound very controversial. This is going to sound very mean. There's a level of sanctioning that has to take place at some point. I'm talking. Look, if a woman is getting everything handed to her, the man is providing for her. The man is helping. He's stepping up at home, he's helping with the kids, he's leading spiritually or at least attempting to. He's doing everything that a Christian husband should be doing. He sought some support from the preacher, from the elders, whatever. And they're saying, man, you're doing great. And he's seeing this from the outside perspective and inside perspective. At some point, it has to connect with the wife to say, man, you like, this is going to cost you something at some point. Sometimes that's financial, you know, where they have everything that they possibly want. It's like, look, I'm. I know this sounds really, really mean, but there's a level of like, I'm providing literally everything. I'm getting nothing. Sex has been pulled away. You run me down in front of the kids. You're not taking care of. You know, like, there's no Proverbs 31 going on of praising me in the gates or any of those things. And there's no warmth toward me. And you see this. I've worked with this a significant amount, unfortunately, where there's just zero warmth. And we work for months on making sure the guy is buttoning up everything he possibly can. The first thing you know, you never run to the well, it's all her fault. It's like, no, let's shore this up. We talked about that. But at some point, there has to be a level of, in my opinion, you call discipline. You call it, whatever you want, where the woman gets her cake and eats it too. She gets to cut the guy out of her life and get all of the benefits of having the guy in her life, which is the roof above her head, the food on the table. And I'm not saying that you take those things away per se, but all the frivolous things, the Amazon packages, the everything else, it's like, like, no, no, that, that is a privilege of a wife. You are not acting as a wife. You're acting barely as a roommate. And so at some point, you have relegated yourself to the roommate, the roommate position. I'm not about to go buy all of these things for the roommate. I'm not about to go have 15Amazon packages come to the roommate. I need a wife. I need a partner. I need a help meet. We've gone to the elders. We've sought counseling. I have loved you. I have cherished you. I've done everything else. I. I have. There's a concept in parenting therapy where you love bomb the kid for seven days. If the problem gets better, then you have a love problem, you know, attention problem. And if the kid gets worse, then you have a boundary problem. You love bomb your wife, you give her everything, you bring home the flowers, you're really trying to help. And if the problem gets worse, you have a serious issue of boundaries on your hand where she's just continuing to push against it, in which case there's got to be some level of boundaries and sanctions that are put on the marriage. That may sound awful. I know that's going to sound bad to the listeners, but I've mentioned this before. And then. Sorry, I'll pass this over. Every head has ways of God disciplines us. The, you know, the rulers, the authorities have the ability to discipline and to take care of those underneath them. Fathers to the kids, elders to the parents. The only one that we will never touch is the white or the husband to the wife. Well, no, those are equal. Every other umbrella that we would agree with, every other umbrella has the ability to help those underneath them and at times potentially say, this is wrong. We're doing it differently. Except marriage. And where do we see most of our problems today? Marriage. So, yeah, I do think the guy has to have a recourse to try
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to help fix things, just briefly, because I know we got to keep going here with some other stuff. I would challenge anybody who. Joe, you're right. Like, that's not gonna be very popular. That's not gonna be a very well liked take. I would challenge Anybody who just. I can't believe that. What's your alternative? What's your alternative? What's your idea? You know, like, if you've. If you've got a better solution, a better idea, go for it. But I'm not a big fan of criticizing, you know, solutions to things unless you've got a better alternative. So the only other thing I was going to say, and Joe, you said it, is I do think, I mean, elderships exist for this very reason. And it is a shame that I think a lot of elderships are not equipped to handle either not equipped A or B, you don't want to handle stuff like this intermarital or, you know, like struggles within marriages. And these are, man, these are daily. These are weekly things. And this is where you really need your elders. You really need to be able to go to your elders and say, I'm struggling. I need help. What do I do? And again, a lot of elders probably are not equipped for that. But that's unfortunate because that's what they should be equipped for. But, yeah, I mean, that's the reason they exist. The only other thing I wanted to
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say on this one, the problem with that, it's not that you're wrong, it's kind of tough love that people need to hear in this day and age with the custody courts, things like that. The engagement ring can become the pin on a grenade that when she takes it off, your life blows up. And if a guy starts putting his foot down and saying, honey, this is ridiculous. You are not pulling your weight in this relationship. Oh, toxic, abusive narcissist, I'm out of here. Like, you know, that's. That's just a difficult reality we live in. And it's the kind of thing, as you guys are both getting at, a lot of church leaders are going to side with her. The court's going to side with her, friends are going to side with her. Like, that's. It's a very tough spot. And so going back to that other point, you want to be around friends who affirm divorce is not an option. You want to have family members who affirm divorce is not an option. You want to have people who are rooting for and interested in your marriage. If possible, be in a church that is interested in preserving your marriage, but that doesn't mean you don't do those things because it ends up that way a lot of times anyway. So you might as well try the recourse that you have. So an interesting thought. Be very interested to see what kind of feedback we get on that. But it's, as they said, what's a better idea? And so that's that side of the equation. A lot of the answers for these final two are going to be very similar to what we just had with the first two getting around Good Friends prayer and things like that. But when you've got the domineering husbands, that is very different than the passive husband, the lazy husband, but the domineering husband, one of the principles that still applies is the. The first Peter 3 quietly submitting, heaping coals on his head by kind of showing the ridiculousness of him feeling like he's got to trample you when you're just going along with it anyway. If you turn it into a power struggle, that is not. It's going to. He's going to get worse. On the other hand, just because she submits and does her job doesn't mean he's going to go, okay, I'm going to. I'm going to back off a little bit. But there are guys that will micromanage every bit of her life. I keep passing it to you guys. I introduced these. What do you guys think about that? It's not very fair. So I guess on this one, when she has a domineering husband who is just controlling every part of her life or whatever the case may be,
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the
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recourse on that is difficult. I mean,
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do you think it's right to go to the elders?
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I think it can be at a certain point. Yeah.
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I was gonna say I feel like it can.
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I think so.
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Yeah. Time to bring in others to do the. Because she's a Christian too. It's a Christian brother who's in sin and she cares about her husband, obviously. And so I think it's okay to do the Matthew 18.
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We're talking about big stuff here. We're not talking about, you know, he always picks the restaurant type of thing.
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Right.
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We're talking about. Right, right, right. More grat. You know, see more serious stuff. Go ahead.
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Right.
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Well, that's one of the problems is what we just talked about before, or you're gonna get a lot of white knight church leaders who come in. And that's the problem. Happy wife, happy life, buddy. And he's gonna go, yeah, no thanks. I'm not doing that. I'm not giving into that. And I've seen how that works for you, and I'm not doing it. And so you need solid stuff that says, hey, buddy, you are the head of this woman and you're being a dictator. You're being a tyrant in your household.
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What?
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Joe, you brought up all the levels of hierarchy that God has established. Name any of them where a guy is allowed to be a tyrant, where the leader, the ruler of a nation, a father, things like that. And when it goes well, it just doesn't work. And so that kind of perspective needs to be there from somebody in their life.
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I think the struggle with this would be like what? Let's say she does go to the elders and similar to the other example, he doesn't really change. Like there's just not a lot of, you know, change of heart. The behavior doesn't really stop. Then what? Like that. That's. I don't have a solid answer to that, Joe. I don't know if you do, but go ahead.
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No, no, go for it, Go for it.
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Sorry, I was going to take a slightly different direction. So you go ahead.
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Well, the only thing I mentioned this book a bunch. Empowered Wife. The Empowered Wife is a book that is worth checking out. It is from a secular artist, secular author Laura Doyle. I don't agree with everything. I'm not saying everything in the book is a thousand percent perfect. She makes some really good points when you're. When you have a wife who's dealing with just a jerk husband, a very domineering husband, and how to still respect him. And her first chapter, she's got six skills for intimacy and her first chapter is in self care. Make sure you're not looking to your husband to, you know, to be your happiness and to all of those things, you take care of yourself. You keep things on your sheet and keep the things that are on his sheet, his sheet. And that means you can set some boundaries around certain things, around, you know, where you're at. And you really try to mitigate some of the domineering when possible. If it's going to go too far, if it's obviously not God honoring. On the other hand, there's a level of. I mean, she does a great job of showing how to work within the framework of a guy who's really difficult to handle. And it is still thanking him. It's still viewing him through a positive lens. It's still recognizing the good stuff that he does and trying to praise the good stuff so as to bring out the best points of him. But a lot of these guys, they need a lot of deep therapy work, to be honest with you. But they also need sometimes a swift kick to the butt. And that's where we have the guys from the church that need to be willing to step up. They're aware of what's going on, specifically the elders who are willing to sit across the table from the guy time and again if necessary, and go, what is going on? And we. You have to be able to get through this, because I don't know how disfellowshipping works where you disfellowship a spouse. I don't even know if that's possible.
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Yeah, it doesn't work that way.
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Yeah, it doesn't really seem to work. So, you know, at some point, the recourse is not great. My question was. Sorry, Noel, you're going to take it in a different direction.
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You're good.
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But I was curious on, is there a time of separation? What are your guys's thoughts on that? We talked about. We will never say divorce is okay. Is there a time where the man is. And I would say in matters of abuse, maybe this really comes.
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Right.
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Let's throw that out there.
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Physical danger.
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We're not talking physical danger. We're talking the emotional. Like he is as domineering, as controlling as possible. Is there ever a time that's appropriate.
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I think 1 Corinthians 7 about the withholding your body.
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That.
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That is that. And that's something that you're supposed to do by agreement. And so, no, I don't think you can justify it from that sense. I think it's similar to the Kathy Keller thing. You know, I'm gonna go ahead and do this big thing to get your attention, and so you're gonna listen to me and do it my way. Well, even if it's. There's. There's something. I mean, because it sound like Kathy Keller was in the right. He was a workaholic. But even if she's right, her being right and forcing him to deal with it makes her the leader. And so you're not. You're gonna swing back too far the other direction. And so I don't spellpoint. Yeah, that's my take.
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Yeah. Well, I also seems to fly in the face of the first Peter 3 thing. I think to what extent and to what level is this is the domineering and emotional abuse? Because, like, I'm. I know the word abuse gets used a lot. Emotional abuse is a very real thing. Like, I don't want to downplay that at all. Obviously, it's very different from physical abuse. And so, yeah, I. I think I would be very cautious to just kind of give. You know, open the floodgates to. Oh, yeah, just use separation as a tactic. Kind of like you're saying, Jack, like Kathy Keller did with the story that
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you shared to wake him up.
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Yeah.
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Right. But like the way that, I mean, if husbands are in sin in that instance, and the elder just, you know, the going to the elders doesn't work, and you've been, you've submitted and been chased and been quiet for three years, and that hasn't worked. Like, then, then what? You know what I mean? Like, I, that's where I would really, I struggle and I don't think it's the right thing to do under any circumstance. But man, like, I, I would feel for a woman who again, has gone through all those steps and it's just coming up dry. It's just nothing like, well, then what do you do? Because, you know, the. Joe, the solution you just gave for the husband, pretty strong, that's pretty severe. That is pretty hard hitting. And so I, I hate to come up with a scenario where the husband kind of has a recourse course of action to take. And the w. It doesn't. So I'm not quite as out on it as Jack is, even though I pretty much agree that it doesn't seem like that's what scripture would, would teach. But I don't know. What are your thoughts, Joe?
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I think the goal is, you know, the same thing. It's, it's harsh for the man to put on sanctions. What's the goal of the sanctions? To ultimately save the marriage. Now, how is the woman going to ultimately save? You know, it's. I think it's more on the man, obviously, to do that, but the woman can certainly help in those contexts to try to save the marriage. What is it that that man needs the most? You know, a man that's domineering, he needs control. He's. And why does he need control? Because he doesn't know what it looks like to be outside control. So if you're living within that, that can be really, really difficult. But if you can have a lot of conversations around some of those things. If he's open to communication, not all of them are. If he's open to communicating about some of those things, I would look to communicate. I look to not challenge it in terms of like, shout him down, but challenge it in terms like, you know, hey, I'm on your team. What's going on here? You know, helping him understand you're on his side and that you're a team. Yeah, that feels way more, way less severe than, like you said, Will, than the last of what we're talking about. We're looking at what's going to help save the marriage. And is there a time where separation can help save the marriage? I don't like the idea just pulling away without there being some conversation you don't want.
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You don't want to open the floodgates to. It is the scary thing.
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Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, where does it end? But I also think that if you're having these conversations of like, hey, this is really, really difficult, I think a woman has every right to talk about her wants and talk about her needs and talk about, you know, what's been going on. And I'm, quite frankly, I'm scared of you. The kids are scared of you. You know, we're not feeling these things. It feels like you don't love me. You know, those type of things. However you want to phrase it, I think the woman bringing this to the man and saying, I'm genuinely asking for your help and giving him the opportunity, that's so idealistic. There's so many men that are going to go, I don't really care. I realize that we're going to get a lot of comments of, well, you don't understand these situations. There's a lot of really difficult situations. I know at the end of the day, we have to look at what is going to help the marriage be at its very best. That means it does take two people, and when one isn't doing their job, it leaves the other person to do the very best they can to protect themselves, but also to be, you know, to find joy, to find peace, to find comfort in God, you know, on their own, where they are turning to the church, they're getting very involved in the church. They're bringing their kids to the church. You know, they are crying out to God for peace, you know, crying out to God for relief, for the man to, you know, that you're praying on his behalf, trying to pray for him to. To come to repentance. You are maybe fasting, you're getting with other members of the church, other women, you know, and the elders and fasting with them and asking for their prayers. And so you're trying to get as many people involved on the spiritual front to bring him back around. And I would say the man can do the same thing for his wife, you know, even before any of the sanctions. I think those things need to be done where you are growing spiritually and trying to spiritually handle this to the best of your ability. Yeah, it's a really difficult situation. I don't think it's Grounds for divorce. Some people live in very unhealthy marriages. But as long as you are trying to find your own happiness apart from him and really trying to take care of yourself in the ways that you can and not putting that burden on him and then showing up with a level of respect, you know, because that's what God's calling you to do. A lot of times that can help the situation. Not always, but at the very least, even if he's not changed, because that's not really the point of it, you can't know if he's going to. At least you'll be changed, you'll be closer to God, you'll be more at peace because you are taking care. You're engaging in self care and taking care of the things you can take care of.
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Yeah, well, with what you brought up for men earlier, like the answer to that is lead even more. And I think for women the temptation is also lead even more. And it's like, no, I think you get the better result by doing even more of what you're called to do. And that's kind of what you're talking about a little bit with the empowered wife thing and all that is better submission better. Because the easiest thing in the world is start turning it into a power struggle which feeds the insecurity, which feeds the tug of war game and you just end up there. And I don't know, it's a very delicate thing. It's something that. One of the other things that is a huge blessing is if you are both committed to not divorce. That is a rare thing, unfortunately, but that is something that gives you the space to work on these kinds of things. Don't let it become the thing that leads you to complacency. Just don't like that. Again, let it be the thing that gives you space to work on it and do the hard work and have the hard conversations. So we had one more, the lazy wife. I think that was covered pretty well by the unsubmissive wife. You know, very similar. Straight communication being straightforward. We're running out of time here. Final thoughts, comments, things we need to bring up before we go.
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I'll be brief and maybe I can elaborate more on this in the deep end. Man, I would love to see churches and elderships pour into and invest into young newly married couples in their congregation. More than just sending them to a young professionals class. You know, we do this with new converts or some congregations do of like, you know, they're newly converted, they're baptized. Okay, then let's get you in a class. Let's get you, you know, really up to speed on what being a Christian is all about, which I'm a fan of that. I think it should probably go longer than a 13 week course. But still, man with marriages too, I think it would be amazing if elderships really, I'm not trying to put myself in the shoes of elders, but like young couple gets married, tending the congregation, pouring into them. Maybe it's a class that's a little bit, you know, I wouldn't stop there. Maybe it's a mentorship program, maybe it's, you know, just organically you spend a lot of time with the new, with the young married couple. You look for these habits, you really call them out if needed. But I think that's just, I guess my final thought that I'll share is I think that that should be something that elderships really prioritize is the health and happiness of young marriages. Because as we've covered, once you hit 12, 15 years, if these things are bubbling over the surface, they were probably there earlier on and maybe could have been stopped. So that's, I will use that as my final thought.
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Yeah, those are good thoughts. I don't have much more to add. I know this is, this is a very challenging episode. By and large. I think people can benefit through getting help from elders, getting help from will. As you talked about older mentors, older people potentially. If you're going to go into therapy, just vet your therapist, make sure that they are somebody who's going to be down the middle. They're not going to look to take sides. They're going to be on the side of the marriage. That's really the important thing is you want somebody on the side of the marriage that's going to give advice based off of not a. Well, give the man, you know, everything he wants to give the woman everything she wants. Like no, what is the healthiest thing for the marriage going forward? And sometimes that it's a difficult thing, you know, as we're fleshing out here and so I'm curious to get everybody else's thoughts. Make sure to comment, get your comments on the deep end, we'll get to those in the deep end or comments on the patreon, rather, we'll get to those in the deep end. But I don't have much more to add other than marriage can be an incredible, incredible thing. And that's all we're looking to do, is to advocate for that. Jack, you hit on something important, when in doubt, go back to your God given roles and try to maximize those things. Men need to lead with love, cherishing their wives, caring for their wives, trying to help their wives love being married to them. Women also need to submit to their husbands and help their husbands feel very loved and honored and respected. And I think that when both are fulfilling the roles God gave them to the best of their ability, that solves basically 10 out of 10 problems.
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Yeah, I think for the deep end there's a lot more to add on to what Will was talking about there of what the church can do. I think as he said, the efforts we have marriage classes with our young marrieds. It's good. But especially on the practical mentoring angle, the differences of what men need, what women need. I think there's a lot to talk about there so we will push that to the deep end. You can join us there. FocusPress.org/P L U S and as always, check us out over there. Leave a Comment Whether you're catching this on YouTube or you see one of the things on Facebook, send me a message. I'd be very interested to hear people's feedback on this because this is why we're doing this. We get messages from people saying, this is where I love what you guys talk about. I'm trying to do that at home and here's the problem and for men and women. So we hope this has been a help. As always, just leave your comments, send us your thoughts and we'll talk to you guys on the next one. Foreign. Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate thanks again for listening.