Podcast: Play in new window | Download
We’ve all been there. You gave all the right hints. Shared all the right stories. And to your utter dismay, he apparently retained absolutely none of it. Well, today we’re breaking down the walls of confusion and hitting you hard with insights you don’t want to miss on exactly what your desire from your spouse, what he desires from you, and how to get what you desire. All of this in the context of biblically solid principles that will leave you inspired to be more like Jesus in your marriage.
All the links, resources, and show notes available at: delightyourmarriage.com/93
Transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host, belah rose.
0:19
Well, if you have been married for any amount of time, I’m sure the title resonates with you how to receive the love you desire. Because we’ve all had experiences, where you think you’ve dropped 1000 hints, you’ve shared stories of friends that have had wonderful experiences, and you assume that that meant something to your spouse, and later to find out, he didn’t even know what you were talking about, or it didn’t even strike a chord. So today, we’re really talking about the nitty gritty how to receive that love that you desire. Because truly each of us desire specific things. And if we don’t do the hard work of figuring out what it is we desire, specifically, and then translating that into a way that our spouse can comprehend and how that makes sense to him. We won’t be able to receive what we desire. So I’m talking to Kimberly Ray, she’s an amazing woman has an amazing story. And she’s talking about practically, how to understand your husband, how to understand yourself, and how together those two understandings, you can make a strategy for a much more loving, fulfilling marriage for yourself, but it does take some work. And so we’re going to find out today, the tools that you’ll need to, to have the understandings you’ll need to discover and how you can help your partner work with you in loving him and him loving you and how that connects together. So let’s go ahead and dive in and understand this very important concepts.
2:19
Hi, there and welcome to let your marriage listener, I’m really excited that you’re here with me today. I have a wonderful conversation planned with Miss Kimberly Ray, or I guess it’s Mrs. Kimberly ray from Kimberly ray.com. Welcome, Kimberly, thanks for being here for having me. So yeah, so would you go ahead and introduce yourself a bit and tell us a little bit about your day to day life?
2:42
Okay, there is no such thing as a normal day, which is probably the same for most wives mom. I am in author. We used to be in mission. So we’ve lived overseas. Before I got married, I was in Bangladesh for a couple years and Uganda. And then after I got married, we were in Postville, Indonesia for a while. And we actually planning on staying there long term. It was a very fascinating place. To me, it was a great culture and stuff. We got the fish heads and snake. And when our baby was born, he was the only white blue eyed bald baby in town. So we turned it into celebrities and they told us to rub honey on his head, make your hair grow. It was it was great. I got diagnosed with Addison’s disease, and we had to come back to the state permanently. And for a while I really felt like God is shutting me down. And then I realized he wasn’t shutting us down. He was setting aside for something totally different. And as usual, it was something better and something that I needed to learn. For me personally, it was that I needed to learn to stop trying to find my significance in what I did. And so being sick, can suck was a really good lesson in learning to find my significance in Jesus Christ alone. And then after that time, when I was ready, he got me started with writing. It was my way of saying in missions and staying connected to overseas and I write novels about human trafficking and missions. And it’s kind of my way of taking people on missions trips, without having to go on the plane and jetlag and that you don’t have to eat fish. And we now have two kids. One is 11 and one is seven. I’m actually homeschooling them this year, which was a totally new challenge. And let’s see what else I go around seeking and training people on how to fight human trafficking. And sometimes I speak about living joyfully with chronic illness and sometimes I still speak about missions and sometimes I can’t speak because I’m fit so oh my daily life is run with a three hour schedules pills and a specific diet and trying to figure out which symptom goes with with sickness because I also have asthma and Hypermobility syndrome and scoliosis. And it’s it’s on my brain. Oh my god. It’s a juggling act. And for those of you with chronic illness, which I hear is about one out of every two people, you know what it’s like, have your day limited and still wish you could do more. And again, the Lord is teaching me all the time to stop trying to find my words, and unless I do, but just be in charge. And so it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to be afflicted that we might learn that you so I’m trying to learn to submit in this area, as in many others, that I made my life with anybody.
5:26
Wow, that is so powerful. And can you share a little bit about Addison’s disease?
5:32
Yeah, it’s a very rare disease. Most people if they know about it, it’s because of JFK he had it. It means your adrenal glands don’t work, right. And your adrenal glands produce cortisol, which is a hormone that affects like every cell in your body. So obviously, if they don’t work, that’s a big problem. Hey, about 100 years ago, if you got it, you pretty much died. But we have steroids that can replace the cortisol. So I am steroid dependent for the rest of my life. And not this kind of steroids that may give us the kind of theories and make up. So I take those every day. And then the problem is though, your body is adapting cortisol, like every 20 seconds, and it’s the hormone that they call it the stress hormone. But it’s basically the hormone that helps you deal with change. And so when you’re in traffic, your cortisol levels rise, when you’re sick, your cortisol levels rise, when you’re in conflict, they rise when the temperature changes everything like that. So if I get sick, I have to adapt my medicine accordingly. So you’re always trying to figure out go up, go down, and then withdrawal down. And you know, it’s just it’s really, really interesting. Learning to figure out how to live with it. But I remember when I first got the disease, and I was reading on it, it’s kind of like, Am I just overreacting, is it really not that big of a deal. And I read this test they did on rats, and they took out the rats adrenal glands. And as long as absolutely everything in their little world say the same, the same number of rats in the cage and temperature, same food every single day, they were okay. But if they change one single thing, even like one degree of temperature, the rest drop dead. Good new validating, I get kind of serious. So I have to wear a little emergency bracelet, and I have to take an emergency shot with me in case I get in a wreck or something. So it’s quite dramatic. You know, it impresses people. If you like.
7:23
Yeah, no, it’s an everyday constant consideration for you,
7:27
every day all day long.
7:31
Wow, wow. Well, what, um, tell us a little bit about your personality, a little bit about your husband’s personality, if you could, I am
7:39
the balloon. And he’s the brick. Say everybody needs one. And I’m the one who’s more emotional and romantic and creative and colorful. And he’s very stable and consistent. And he’s exactly what I need, because I float around and he helps me to the ground. And like all marriages, probably the very things that you need, and that you appreciate so much are also some things that drive me crazy. Yeah, having discussions on are there 12 colors or other hundreds of colors? And we know we’re both right. But it’s one thing that’s interesting about the two of us is I’m a writer, and he hates three, he always has. And I find that Mike, and I used to say what in the world, you know, but it’s actually turned out for good because he doesn’t enjoy reading, but he doesn’t mind listening. So whenever I write a book, I read it out loud to him, which is a great editing way for us writers. But then he always, he always is the first one to get every single thing I write. So it turned out for good.
8:39
I love that. Well, I think that’s definitely maturity. And it’s obvious in your attitude. And the ways you’ve described everything that you’ve gone through in your life is that the things that seem to be most challenging, the things that on face value seem like they are a curse versus a blessing. When we have some perspective, we have some life experience some attitude shifts, we can see that God is working it together for good anyway, even without us necessarily recognize it. That’s awesome. Well, so I want to hear I mean, I’m so interested in so much of what you’ve shared already. But would you tell us a story of a difficult season or struggle in your marriage? And you know what, before we go into that, because this entire podcast is really about inspiring and empowering wives with inspirational stories and stories that teach us about life and love and God and how He works in all of those areas. Is there a scripture or quote that has meant a lot to you over the years?
9:42
Yeah, right before we got married as your elderly lady in our church, he gave us a wedding card. And at the bottom there was a quote that I love so much actually framed it and put it on our wall and it said, each for the other and both for die. And that really struck me because I was so happy didn’t get married till I was 28. He was 27. And, you know, you have all these ideas of what marriage is supposed to be. But that really struck me that triangle concepts of the closer you are to God, the first few between each other, and making your marriage about the other person about the Lord instead of about yourself, which is, of course, we all get into marriage, thinking of ourselves probably more than anybody else. And we say, a marriage thinking about ourselves more than anybody else. And that reminds me, this is not just about me, this is this is something that is eternal. And it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be a representation of Jesus Christ. And it can’t be that way. If I’m being selfish.
10:40
is so wise. I love that. Yep. Awesome. Well, can you share about a difficult season in your marriage? Oh,
10:48
yeah, well,
10:49
I would be the difficult season in our marriage. When I got married, I had all these wonderful, I wanted our marriage to be not just a good marriage, I wanted a great marriage, I wanted our marriage to be one of those way up there that people could look at. And it was, it was all it was supposed to be. And it was full of romance and both passion. And you know, we were always keen on it and making it a priority. And over the years, because I felt that way, I push for my goal, which I thought was godly. And you know, let’s read this book, let’s do this thing. Let’s have a date night, the book says this, you know, we need to do this. And we try this. And my husband is very much a Fiat steady, stable and consistent, which means he’s not terribly motivated to let’s do all these extra things that are gonna take extra effort. And being a guy, he’s like that I’m going to fail anyway. No, I would push and prod and how we NAG and whine and it wasn’t making things better. And I thought the problem was him. He didn’t care as much about our marriage. He wasn’t prioritizing our marriage, you know, God, what is the problem, you need to fix him? And over the years, of course, I pushed harder, and usually pushing just makes the person back off instead of coming closer. So our marriage was still good, but it wasn’t what I wanted. You know, it wasn’t good enough. And so I kept trying and kept trying. And I tried this. And that didn’t work. So I try something else. And that didn’t work. And I tried something else. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t figure out the magic button. You know, finally, it came down to I was explaining that, you know, this is what I want our marriage to be. Don’t you want to raise you this way? And he honestly came out and said no. And you realize what he wanted for our marriage was he wanted pleasantness. Now, me as an author, I love word. Pleasant is right up there with nice, he likes you look nice. I’m like, I’m gonna go change my outfit, cuz I’m terrible. You know, I’m boring and bland. He wanted a nice marriage. He wanted a pleasant marriage. He wanted a friendly marriage, you know, and I think, you know, passion and romance and all these wonderful things. And to me, that was devastating. He sounds silly. I know, there’s women all over the world that would give anything for a husband that treated them nicely. And, and so I kind of kicked his scream internally and emotionally and with God. And there was one day you don’t have when you finally get to the point where you’re willing to listen to the still small voice. Yeah, actually stop talking so much. We got something to say. And God said, Do you want a happy marriage? And it was like, Well, of course, I want to have your marriage. That’s what all this is about. And then he was like, No, do you want a happy marriage? Because basically, he was offering me a happy marriage. And I had to recognize that no, I didn’t want to have the marriage if it meant giving up my idea of a happy marriage. And so in the end, I had to realize it wasn’t that I was prioritizing our marriage. I was prioritizing me. And was I willing to give up me. And then I would have happy marriage. The misery wasn’t the marriage, but misery was me. And I tell my kids, you’re only as miserable as it used to be, but I wasn’t listening. And to finally give that up, that had to be more of a submission to God than anything else. But in Ephesians, it talks about submitting to your husband as unto the Lord. It’s really not about submitting to him. It’s about submitting to Jesus Christ. And the amazing thing is, it always is when we finally give up and let God have what he wants, he very often gives us the thing that we wanted in the first place. And I realized that having a pleasant marriage is actually really nice. Really gave up the pushing and prodding, my husband started doing some of the things that I wanted him to do, but before he wouldn’t, because if he would fail, he would forget, you know, and it just wasn’t gonna work. And now he can do them and freedom because it’s not always huge expectation around it. And I appreciate the stuff that he does do instead of saying, well, that’s not good enough or that’s not you know, how we do sometimes just hinting or just by the way we respond, they know that didn’t work. And men have a tendency to be drawn toward things that they see And so the more you let them know that they’re failing, the more, they’re less likely to do what you want them to do in the first place. And so that would be our struggle, I think was just that
15:10
I had this ideal that I was not willing to give up. And when I finally gave it to God, kind of like being healthy, you know, if I can, if I’m healthy, I can survive more, if I’m healthy, I can do this. And if you keep saying that, and never accept, this is where I’m at, this is what God’s given me, you can’t have joy. And contentment is letting God be in charge of your life, basically, and what he’s giving you is being thankful. And now that I have chosen that I have a wonderful marriage, I have a wonderful husband. And now I can appreciate all the amazing things that he does do, instead of picking that one thing that he didn’t do that I really wanted him to do and jumping on that and living there. You know what I mean? Like there’s a puddle and you go and you sit in it and wallow in it. When there was all this good stuff elsewhere, he would just get out of your pile.
15:55
You Yes, get out of your pedal.
15:57
Yep. Just recently actually. The scriptures really kind of hit that home with me. That verse it talks about PC young women to love their husbands and love their children. Yeah, of course, I love my husband love my children. And somebody was saying, you know, there’s there’s different words for love in the scriptures. There’s the there’s the agave love, which is the unconditional Christ like love. And there’s the arrow with love, which is the passionate kind of sexual love. And then there’s friendship love filet O, and that friendship, love. And they were saying what it literally means is like, what did they say? It’s like, snuggly, snuggly love. And that really stressed me because my husband is very affectionate. And he’s just an ugly type. And I’m not I’m the let’s go with you let’s, you know, sit and stare at each other’s eyes and say important things or something like pursue teach the young women to be affectionate and friendly with their husbands. My husband’s a friendly much more than he is fireworks, whatever I wanted to be. And it’s like, if I’m willing to be what he needs. Our marriage will be right, because that’s the way God intended it.
17:10
So tell us how this developed so that this happened over a course of a couple of years, or what’s the timeline here? Were like 12.
17:22
It was kind of come and go, come and go, you know, I push and prod and trying to get something out. And then I submit for a while. And then I think, Oh, I got another idea. Let’s try this. And I pushed in fraud. And I it. I’m ashamed of myself, but it took me this long. But I’m a doer, I’m a fixer. And so whenever things would feel stagnant, it’s like, Oh, I’m gonna fix it. I’m going to fix it. And I’m learning instead of fixing it by, hey, if we do this, or hey, if you do this, how about it’s more like, hey, what if I do the first good thing? What if I do the first kind thing? What if I plan something and instead of waiting for him to initiate whatever it is that I think that I want? One time a few years ago, just after a second baby was born. And he was only two months old, he was leaving the country to go back to Indonesia to teach at a conference there. So he’s translating curriculum, he’s doing this work, he’s planning things and guys are single focus. God made them to be that way. But I was thinking in the back of my mind, okay, he’s leaving me with a brand new baby. And so of course, he’s planning some kind of special something before he goes for me, you know, to encourage me, and even me, I get these ideas. And then I jump in them and pursue them and make them a big thing when he wasn’t even thinking of that he was thinking of translation. So the closer I got to the date, the more I thought, you know, I bet he’s going to give me some flowers. So that while he’s gone, I can see them and think of them and know that he loves me. And the more I thought about it, the more like that’s so nice, and he’s not telling me if he’s going to surprise me and and then it did occur to me, You know what, I’ve done this before, and it didn’t work. And then you get upset, and the whole time you’re gone. You think I wish I had some flowers and didn’t give me any flowers. And you know, he wasn’t really thinking about me. And I thought, You know what, I can do that and be miserable. Or I can fix this problem myself. So I actually went out and I bought myself flowers. And I came home to the house. And I saw him in the kitchen and I handed them to him. And I said please give these to me and say, when I’m gone when you see these, remember that I love you to look at his face. He’s kind of like, my in trouble. And this doesn’t sound like a good idea. And I don’t know. And so he said that and I’m like, No, really, it’s okay, I want you to say this. And so finally he handed me the flowers. And he said it, you know, I’ll chagrined and we laugh, but bracing was I put those flowers on the table. And when I saw them, I smiled. And I thought, you know, he really does love me and it was perfect. It was one and I thought you know if I hadn’t done that, I would have sat in my puddle. You know, when he was doing what God asked him to do, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I just made up this whole thing in my head. And so I’m learning, you know, fix the problem yourself if there’s something you need either express it very clearly because they’re direct people don’t know if you want some flowers, so you know, what, could you buy me some flowers? And okay, and that’s romantic, but it’s way better than nothing.
20:17
Yeah, yeah, I love that. So it almost seems like, you know, some people might listen to this and be like, well, so I’ve got to change everything about me in order to just, you know, make this up a peaceful union with Him. And it’s not like, that’s not at all what you’re saying. It sounds like what you’re saying is to be the person that’s proactive. And say, first of all, identify what is it that I need to be happy to enjoy my marriage? Okay, I need flowers every once in a while. So let’s be proactive, and take the first step and buy the flowers and do that. I remember a good friend of mine, actually, she listens to the podcast. So hopefully, she’ll listen in on this one. But she told me I was having just years of Valentine’s stress and like, birthday stress and Christmas. I mean, every holiday, I was stressed, because it came upon the heels of many holidays, where I didn’t feel like I was cherished or loved, or it almost felt like he had forgotten the holiday or that because my husband works on holidays. And it stresses him out to buy things anyway. Because like you said, if a husband thinks that he’s not going to succeed, he probably is going to try to avoid it. Yeah, so anyway, so I had gotten all this pressure that valentine’s day it was this Valentine’s Day was approaching. And my friend was like, you know? Well, she had previously told me, If you want him to do things, you’re gonna have to, you know, tell them very clearly XY and Z, this is what I need. Or even what she and her husband has have done is they’ve made a list for each other of gifts they’d like to receive from the other person. Yeah, so I feel like that’s a very proactive step. So you know that you’re going to receive a gift, that’s something you’ll like. And then, at some point, it’s a surprise that you’ll get it at some point, which I think is very nice. But anyway, so this Valentine’s Day, what ended up happening was, she really encouraged me to let all those other times go and forgive them, and forgive my husband for them. And I hadn’t even realized that that’s what was happening, that I was holding all this stuff against my husband, that, you know, he hadn’t delivered on and, you know, I kind of grumbled as she was telling me this and was like, Well, I don’t really need to forgive. I mean, clearly, I’m, I’m fine. You know, I only do the podcast, I clearly know everything I should. Anyway, it was so good. That’s exactly what I needed to do. It took me a couple days, but I was able to really talk to God about it, and really, really let it go. And meanwhile, I had given my husband indication that I wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day, of course, he was working, but in a couple of days after that, and he had taken it upon himself to ask some people at work, some ideas about gifts and that kind of thing. And he ended up giving me a very, very thoughtful gift that I never had even imagined that I would have wanted, which is a Fitbit. I don’t know if anyone has Fitbits out there, but I love it. So anyway, the moral of my story there was that I, you know, there was some productivity there. But there was also just a lot of forgiveness and like being willing to just receive whatever it was, whether it was nothing or something. And like you said, like, let it go like the flower thing, let it go give him the flowers, tell him what you want him to say. And maybe maybe the next time he will realize that there’s flowers would be helpful and give it to you. But if not, you’re okay.
23:53
It’s like giving them the chance to succeed. Instead of setting them up for failure from the start. We women are notorious for that. Goodness and you’re not going to do it. I know you’re not going to do it and then I’m going to be and it’s like where’s the room for them to succeed? Yeah, we actually have gotten to where we tell each other what we want typically because like for him I love giving creative gifts. You gadget guy I am so technologically challenged, I know anything and it’s like if I buy something it’s gonna be the wrong thing and I already know it you know so I finally given up on that whole spontaneous you know, surprise me whatever it is like and he gets really stressed with the idea of trying to buy something sentimental meaningful, because he wants to buy me something practical and you know, I don’t want a screwdriver So yeah, that’s just let it go. He there another species that just recognize if you want a good gift, be a secret sister with a girl you know. I think that’s great. That’s fantastic.
24:50
Yeah, yeah, that’s I think it’s so true. Well, it takes a while to get there. And I feel like it probably is on a lot of people’s hearts and I’m sure it was on yours for the 12 So yours I mean, I’m still obviously dealing with it myself. But what about those of us that are like, Okay, well, if I just let him off the hook, I’m not going to get anything I want, you know, gift wise, physical touch wise, whatever their love languages. I don’t know if listeners are familiar with the love languages, you love it. You said, Yeah.
25:16
And that’s another thing, like what you were saying, you know, your husband may not like to give you gifts, but he’s going to work every day. And I bet you’re my husband’s love language is acts of service, which is so ironic, because when we studied what love languages were meaningful to me, all four of them, except the acts of service over meeting photos, like, you know, but I tried to learn to recognize the gifts of that, you know, if if I’m not feeling well, I need the extra service more than I knew the other things, and maybe other things are missing. But he’s only got so much to give. And if he’s giving something, I need to recognize the love in that, you know, he took out the trash, thank God that he took out the trash, because that would be bad, you know. And he goes to work for our family. And you know, he’ll do these things. And so maybe it’s not flowers, but it can mean just as much if I recognize the love behind it, I think for me, but I love what you were saying about be very direct and say exactly what you’d like. I always thought, well, he’s not as worth as much if you have to say so he’s got to say. And I remember a couple of Valentine’s Day where I asked him, I’m an author, I love memories, and he’s not good at remembering things. So you know, when I just sit down, oh, tell me about a time when you you know, we first fell in love with me or something you kind of get the deer in the headlights look like? Are you kidding, you know, one time for a gift for our Valentine’s gift and we go out to dinner. And I want you to tell me the story of when we got engaged. And I took my paper, and he told the story. And I wrote it down. And it’s been really precious to me, but it’s not something he would have ever thought to do. Because he wouldn’t think it would be meaningful. You know, it’s a set of screwdrivers. But it was very special to me. But that never would have happened if I hadn’t come out and said this is exactly what I want. And yeah, I’m learning. We’re all learning. And I yeah, I think that’s another thing that’s really important for women to recognize is that it’s not about getting to this point of now our marriage is exactly as it should be. And we are here, the whole point of marriage is to grow to be more like Jesus Christ. And so the struggle in and of itself is a good thing. Because it is sandpapering all of our rough ages, it’s iron, sharpening iron, it is molding us to be more like God’s Son. And if that means, you know, for a while we’re kicking and screaming, we don’t want to admit when we finally do, we’ve grown, if we aren’t learning something, and then we are learning something we’ve grown, if anything’s better than it was before we’ve grown, and that’s the purpose. So that is succeeding. So it’s not about I’m not there until everything’s just right, it’s okay, what do I need to do right now, to make it a little bit better? That is growth, and that’s good. So just like with our kids, you know, when they’re two, you expect them to fall down a lot, and you expect certain things of them. But when they’re five, you expect more of them and when they’re 10, you know, so I think I’d looked at our marriages the same way, we’re gonna screw up a lot in the beginning. And overtime, we should be growing and changing, and being willing to learn how best to work with this other person instead of trying to turn them into a mirror image of ourselves.
28:22
Hmm, yes, I love that well, and we’ve talked a lot about love languages. And that’s actually just for those that aren’t familiar. It’s so funny. Because every time I spend more time on the love language I’ve been I’ve known about love languages, the book, there’s a book and then there’s just there’s a number of books about it. But there’s the original book, I’ll have it all linked up in the show notes at to let your marriage calm. But just to give a primer. There’s five love languages. I’ve known about him since high school, but every single time I either spend time reading the book or talking about it with a friend or taking the test again. I get I’m edified. I’m grown and in learning how to love others better. So the idea is that we each love we either receive love or give love in one of five ways. We’ve got some primary way so you might have one or two that are the very top and you can take a test again I’ll have that linked up that you can figure out what your specific love languages that you’d like to receive and give love but the five are spending time together. And acts of service like you mentioned your husband is my husband is that two is his primary words of affirmation is one is that yours? Is that your top one I’m a writer. There you go. Me two words of affirmation are huge for me as well. The other one is physical touch. And then the last one which 1am I missing gifts. There we go. That’s the one we were kind of talking about. Yep. So anyway, I suggest that you that you take the test. If you can encourage your husband to take the test to so you can understand who he is. But if you can’t, you know if for some reason you’re not able to ask him to take it or he’s not really answering In that whatever, you can probably figure it out just by clues of thinking through when he wants to show love to you, what does he often do. And so a lot of us would point immediately to sex sometimes that’s like the first thing that we think of, because we’re like, Well, I always want sex. And he very well could have physical touches his top one. But a lot of times the book clarified, this woman really liked it. But it said that if you have kind of a consistent physical sexual intimacy in your marriage already, then the husband or wife or whatever, can kind of relax into that consistency. And then think through like, what, what love language might be primary, in addition to that, so like I said, like, physical touch might very well be their number one, but if it’s not, it might just be that they’re really desiring physical intimacy, because that’s something that might be lacking in the marriage. And if that’s not there, then he might not be able to think of anything other than that until it’s at like a good, you know, standard, whatever that is for your marriage, whatever the consistency is, for there, or the frequency is for you guys, that works well. And then you can kind of explore what’s what’s on top of that. So the example that the book had was like, you know, if your wife disrespected you all the time and said, all these mean things to you and criticize you all the time, would you even want to have sex with her? And he’s like, Absolutely not. And so that kind of revealed that, you know, his primary is actually words of affirmation, even though he’s not feeling like he had the sexual intimacy part there. So anyway, there’s just some some interesting things you can kind of think through in your own marriage. But was there anything you wanted to add to that, like, talk about love language?
31:45
Well, it makes me think like, we were trying to figure out, your husband is like, if you were in the hospital, and you couldn’t do anything for him? And what would he most likely do for you? If he wanted to encourage you? Would he bring you a card when he would give you a gift? Would he come and sit with you? Would he hold your hand? And so there are the different thing, and I have found that I found really fascinating is that my love languages are different with my husband than they are with the rest of the world. I think that’s really cool. Yes, like, for example, the touch I remember us talking about a lot of that is affection and touch, you know, like non sexual touching, the hugging and the rubbing in the holding hands and stuff. I’m not a techy person in regular life, I am very uncomfortable with it. I am a very touchy person. And that surprised me, it was kind of like, Oh, my goodness, I never knew this about myself. So I love that he’s my exception. You know, there is a part of love. That is just his that is it for the rest of the world. And I think that’s neat. So even when you’re looking at your husband, I remember this woman on Facebook, I am on a couple of groups that are chronic illness. And she’s like in chronic pain, and she got on and she was so upset and devastated. Because she’s like, I live with pain every day. And I have this terrible time and whatever. And I guess one of her friends got on Facebook and said she had the flu. And posted I’m sorry, I hope you feel better, which was viewed, but he’s like, he’s never posted that on any of my posts. He never says that for me. And mine is so miserable. And it was just like he could see this. I’m desperately needing some words of affirmation, and he gave it to somebody else. But it made me wonder, you know, what is he doing for her? Or is he just totally burnt out? You know, because she expects so much or you know, it’s just really hard to say, and I tried to explain to her, well, the girl with the flu is gonna get better. He doesn’t want to say to you, I hope to get better, because he knows you’re not going to get better. And that would discourage him even more. And so you know, maybe he doesn’t know what to say. And back to being direct and really opening up. So it’s probably not that he hates her and ignoring her. He just doesn’t know what to do. Yes. So that has really been helpful. The Love Languages was huge. Because yeah, I remember like with my dad, I didn’t feel very loved because he wasn’t an affectionate person. And he wasn’t a verbal person. He’s He’s a Navy officer. And as I was reading that book, it was like, you know, the light bulb came on, he paid for things by us things he would, you know, provide for us, and you work hard. And when things get stressful, instead of spending time with us, he would work harder. And I realized, Oh, my goodness, I was very, very loved. And I just didn’t realize it. So yeah, it’s a great book, I would highly recommend it.
34:24
Yeah, I totally, I totally would. And I think there’s another step here that it’s interesting. My Church’s leadership team just went through a meeting where we all took the test again, and, you know, had a conversation about it afterwards. And it was really nice, because we ended up doing this where we took the test and then we read out each of the love languages and had people raise their hands as to what love language was their primary one. And it’s funny because, you know, some of them I could, I could, I could have told them that I could, you know, when they raise their hand I was like, oh, yeah, definitely they’re you know, physical touch or they’re definitely words because They’re always so encouraging and that kind of thing. But then it was so funny because there were a lot of the people were physical touches their primary love language. And I would never, never have have thought that and, and I’m kind of touchy like, I’m, I’m kind of like, I welcome hugs, and I’m happy to give hugs, you know, that kind of thing. But I find it interesting that a lot of us don’t know how to operate in our own love language, effectively, so that we were seeing it consistently, like we need it like the woman that you spoke about, or that we can get it in a way that is welcome to others. So I think about physical touch as as one that we all need, probably, unless you had a very like, touchy family that was very comfortable in that, and had like, a good way of handling social situations with touch involved. I feel like that and pretty much every single one of them, we need some guidance on. Do you think so?
35:56
I totally agree. And just to learn how to exercise them correctly. Sometimes we don’t even know what would feed us. And, yeah, we’re trying to do these other things, because we see other people doing them. And it’s like, kind of like within the body of Christ. This is how to serve the Lord, I have to do what so and so does. And he always gives people notes of encouragement. And so you sit there with your notes, and it’s a blank piece of paper, and you’re totally lost. And you think I am not a good Christian. God gave you something else to do. Don’t worry about it, you know, what is your thing, maybe you’re the one who sits next to the person who’s devastated and grieving, and you just sit there quietly, that is a gift, most of us cannot do that. I am so uncomfortable with silence. And so I fill it with sometimes with things. You know, and, or, you know, maybe you’re the one who leaves the flowers and you go away. And that’s what they eat, you know, and it’s like, stop comparing yourself to everybody else. Figure out what it is that you can do this, that what you naturally do is a gift from God as a gift to others. That’s your way of being his hands and feet. And, again, it’s one of those things to practice, give it a try. And just like a little kid learning to walk, you’re not going to do it great at first, or find somebody else in your church is good at it, and watch them or follow them or even ask them. I mean, what a compliment is the most sincere form of flattery. And so if somebody came up to me and said, You’re so good at being encouraging, how can I be like that? I’d be so honored, you know, that’d be a gift to me. So you’re right, we do need to learn. And that’s where I think the church is missing. You know, the Bible talks about the older women teaching the younger women, we don’t have that very much the mentoring, and the really helping How do you love your husband? How do you love your kids. That’s why I love this podcast. And that’s exactly what it’s doing is helping the older women teach the younger women and not older as in, we’re all like 80, but just somebody who hasn’t had you know, kids say, Okay, this is a step you can take, and that’ll help. So I know my husband knows I need words. And so it’s like buying me a card is not something he was used to. And I used to want that and want that one day, except you know what I’m what he’s good at it. But he bought this little set of post it notes in the shape of those little like balloon talking balloons, you know, it just note that he can do. And so in the morning, he’ll see that little note and he can write on a little side note, it’s not like he has to write a big, long, flowery, whatever, you can just pay a little something. He left me one this morning, it was so sweet. And it just filled me up. But I never would have thought, Okay, if he’s not good at buying cars, by him, I think a post it notes just crossed my mind. So you know, again, you telling them what you need, maybe they need to find their own way of being able to meet it. And again, they’re gonna mess up too. And that’s what I did wrong was when he would try something and it wasn’t what I really needed. I would give him the feeling that he failed, you know, you didn’t come out and say, Oh, you did it wrong, oh, this wasn’t worth anything. But if you criticize, or if you react negatively, they’re going to go the other direction. Whereas you you wouldn’t do that with your kids. You know, if you’re learning to ride a bike, or if they’re learning to do something, you know, they’re not going to do it right at first. And so you encourage them more. So with our husbands we need to learn, you know, if they try that’s huge, you know, yeah, nothing else really encouraged the fact that they tried and appreciate it. And then maybe you can give a tiny little hint not like a list of 17 things next time do it this way. But one thing just one how next time could you blah blah blah, and yay
39:27
yep, yep. And I would even encourage that the the thank you and the next time be miles apart. So maybe,
39:36
maybe again, okay, thank you. But you know, you’re right give the big but no big but Right, right, right. I remember reading about the theme which principle one that whenever you want to give instructions or you know, criticism or whatever sandwiched in between two good things, you start with a good thing I appreciate so much so that it is that maybe next time you can whatever but I just want you to know that better the so that they go A feeling affirmed, and that you recognize what they did. It’s very important for men to know you recognize what they did that was good. Instead of always recognizing what they did that was wrong. I mean, everybody’s that way. None of us really want to be beat over the head with what we’re doing up on.
40:18
That Oh, no, that’s so true. And I love the idea of thinking it through as though you were teaching your kids like, how would you teach them something new, you would, you would absolutely be focused on the good focused on what they did that you loved. And yeah, I would, if I were you, the way that I kind of do it is that because my husband is acts of service, and, you know, when he, when he’ll do something for me, I’ll just be so grateful in the moment, and then later, maybe the next day, or when it crosses my mind, and we’re in a really emotionally good place later, I might say, I love that you did that. And I’d also love if this happened, as well, you know, and it, it kind of gives him in the moment, a lot of positive support, and then later to be thinking about it critically, like, oh, we could even include some words in that interaction or something like that. And like you said, the times when he does give that amazingly wonderful listening ear and is really encouraging with his words, that really means a lot to me. That’s what I will absolutely, in the moment be so encouraging of and grateful for, and tell them how much I feel loved by that. And that does that teaches us and, and I think so to kind of summarize this section of our of our interview is, first of all, it matters to know yourself and to know what you’re needing and what it means for you what the certain kinds of Love Languages means to you, again, please take that test, because you need to kind of get a handle on why you’re desiring these things and what they are. And the second thing is understanding your husband, right, that’s vital to understand what he feels loved by how is he showing you love already, even though maybe you’re not feeling it. And then lastly, basically get some strategy around it, learn how to love better in his love language, learn how to teach him in a good way, what your love language is, and have these conversations. So maybe it’s worth letting him listen to this podcast with you and try to talk through these things. Do you have anything to add? Kimberly?
42:25
Yeah, two things. One would be men are shoulder to shoulder people, typically not always, we women are face to face. So a lot of times what’s meaningful to us is let’s sit at the table. And let’s have a talk about this. And the guy’s feeling like he just got called into the principal’s office, I asked her the best way for us to grow together would be like if we’re in the car. And we’re listening to a podcast on the radio, or audiobook audiobooks are awesome. Because you can be listening, you can stop it, you can talk and everything. But it’s not like, hey, let’s sit down and read a book and you know, really focused on this, that that makes them care a lot of time. He’s like, let’s sit down, and we’re going to talk about my new gadget and be like, Oh, my goodness, I’m so overwhelmed. And the other thing is that it’s very important not to give off this idea that men are stupid, you know, we have to tell them everything. And we have to spell it all out, and what’s the matter with them, and they’re so whatever that is that poison to your marriage. And I hate this whole thing about our culture, that we can just beat men up all the time. If that’s wrong, it’s ungodly, Christian women should never be doing that. You should never be making fun of our husbands. And that’s okay. But when we lived overseas, it was such a great experience. Because every culture is different. And every country lives, there’s a different culture, and you get so used to the different one that I remember when we first came home. And it’s like, I don’t know how to behave in this setting anymore, because I don’t remember how this works. And in the other culture, you recognize there’s different things that are important to them, that are important to me. You know, as with admissions, it’s like, the last thing you want to do is go over and be like, hey, my way of doing things is this, this, this and this, and you’re not doing them right, and blah, blah, blah, that’s totally not the way to share the gospel or, and you know, your friends. The best way is you start asking questions about them. Who are they? What do they care about? What’s important to them? How does this work like, and you find out the most amazing things and you find out even sometimes, what they’re doing that you thought was rude, and inconsiderate, and whatever, totally wasn’t like in Indonesia, for example, if you’re sitting at the dinner table, and you ask somebody to pack the potatoes, that is totally rude. Excellent, stop eating to give you something, reach across from them and grab the papers for yourself. Wow. So you know, the two people might be trying to be time. And they’re actually the other person thinking they’re totally rude. Whereas a little bit of communication would fix the problem entirely, because you’re thinking in a different way. And God made men and women to think in a different way. So we need to get to know them. So one of the things we can do like with the love language isn’t Hey, I took this test and I found that it was like this and now you do All these things for me, it’s find out about his Hey, I heard about the thing where there’s these love languages and different ways people show love. If you were in the hospital, what would you want me to do? I’m totally curious about you. Typically, when a person feels validated that way and feels listened to they reciprocate, you ask them questions, they ask you questions back, it’s just a natural thing. Whereas you push, they’re gonna push back, you criticize, they’re gonna criticize back. It’s just a real simple thing. It’s like a ping pong match. So be the first positive, you know, and in the in the cultures that we live in, I finally learned pretty much every time there was something that felt rude or inconsiderate, or unloving, I would start telling myself there’s something about this that I don’t know. And I’d find out right away, sometimes I wouldn’t find out for months. But whenever I did find out I find out yep, there was something I didn’t know and ending made it that they weren’t doing anything and consider it, there was a total reason that I did not understand that it helps so much with like, everybody, you know, yes, doing all these things. Just assume we don’t know everything. Yes. Have that down.
46:07
You would think, Oh, I love that. There’s something about this. I don’t know what a wonderful reminder and something that when you start to feel yourself getting frustrated or concerned or sad, even like a lot of times, it’s just something you don’t know, that’s awesome. Well, I hope that you have been inspired to take the high road, to take the first step to be intentional about finding out who you are, what you need to feel loved. And then figure out strategize literally take a pen and paper and strategize how to receive that love. And yes, go for it. Ask for advice, something we’re doing pretty soon in our leadership meeting I mentioned is that we are actually you can do this in your in your church or with a small group or whatever. But we’ve selected people in our group that are specially capable and competent, in particular love languages. And then we are interviewing them about how how it works. So just simple questions like, you know, quick questions that you might have about gift giving, for example, how do you like to receive gifts? How do you know that someone likes a particular type of gift? How do you give a gift in a good way? Those kinds of things? Let’s say that’s the topic, we’re talking about his gifts, right? But then all of the other five. So go for it. Ask for advice, find someone who’s really good at giving and receiving time, let’s say that’s their top, love language and just ask them some questions. Just take them out for coffee and be like, I’d love to pick your brain on this. And yeah, they might have never thought about it before. But if they are really adept at their love language, I’m sure they have strategies that they would love to share them with you. So yes, go for it. Know who you are, find out what he is strategize and learn. That’s what this is about. So go to delight your marriage.com/ 93 There’s a link there for the love languages test or the quiz. It doesn’t take very long, very easy to fill out. But it’s so insightful. It’s very worth your time. And listen, if this episode has been helpful to you, would you think of one person that you could afford this on to just to share these insights that might be life giving and totally transformational for someone’s marriage? Who knows what you could spark just by sharing this episode? Well, God bless you. I’m praying for you. I’m going to talk to you next Tuesday, Kimberly Ray is back to talk about chronic illness and what that means in marriage and how we all can learn from it. There’s really significant insights that I just can’t wait to share with you. We’ll talk then, bye.
49:04
Thanks for listening. Stop by delight your marriage.com to check out all the show notes as well as many more resources and articles. Until next time, live with love, wisdom impassion