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Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about delight your marriage. Hi, there, good morning, or afternoon or evening, wherever you are, I want to thank you for tuning in. So this is Bella. And I want to talk about trusting an untrustworthy man or really respecting, in fact, because I think that is really what God is asking us to do as wives. And that is what He empowers us to do. And there is reason for it. Aside from just biblical truths, I think it actually changes humans, when we respect and when we honor. So before we get into that, I want to invite you, if you need help right away with your marriage, you can sign up for basically applying for clarity call, which is kind of like a free consultation. It’s a $300 value. And you can go to delight your marriage.com/cc and apply for that. And one of my clarity advisors will reach out to you. And they’re actually graduates themselves with the program. So they actually know very specifically, whether or not this kind of a thing would work for you and your situation. But by God’s grace, there’s so many transformations that we get to witness every day. So we’d love to help you if you need it. Well, let’s dive in. So I don’t think this is an easy topic, this is not the first time I have recorded this episode. So I really want to empower you by the end of this conversation. That’s my goal. If you’re a wife listening, I want you to feel empowered, that you have some tools, some insights and framework of how to continue with your marriage. Ideally, I want your marriage to thrive, I want it to transform. I want your husband to be the man that God wants him to be. And a lot of times, wives are the ones that can really see who this man is. So what do I mean when I talk about respecting and untrustworthy man? Well, it’s clear from the Bible, that it’s important for wives to respect their husbands Ephesians. Five is clear on that. Now, I think there’s some areas for interpretation on exactly what that those those words like submit to, and those kinds of things mean. But no matter what I think we can all agree that it matters whether or not you respect your husband. And so what I’ve found out through my work, through working with people from around the world, from my research from really working to tease things, things out with God and with trying to understand but I call the intimacy framework and basically for a wife to feel fulfilled. She needs to feel known, safe, and wholeheartedly cherished, and I talk a lot about that in other episodes, but let’s shift our focus to what men need to feel fulfilled is to feel respected, to fill admired and wholehearted sexual intimacy. And I think the reason why I’m looking at respect right now, is because a lot of times we think that someone has to earn respect, or we won’t respect them. And when I look at the intimacy framework, it helps me to realize that no, this is the way God made him to need respect. Just like I need to be cherished I need to be known and need emotional safety. It’s not okay for me to be treated poorly or criticized or mean spirited comments are not listened to. That’s just not okay.

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And I’m, I feel that’s a very valid need as a wife, and I’m not really going to feel loved by any stretch, if those things are not in place, it’s the same way with a husband. He needs that it’s legitimate. But it’s also a vulnerability. When somebody needs something, they’re basically subjected to the person that either will or won’t give it. So if I need my spouse to listen to me, for me to feel like I can, that I’m loved and filled up, then I’m subjected to whether or not he’s going to do that. See how it almost is a week, a week thing, it feels weak that you can’t do this on your own. And so when a husband needs respect, you have to think about his feelings of weakness, he can’t, he can’t get that on his own. And remember, I used to work with young adults, and I just wasn’t cut out for the position. And I also wasn’t trained for it. And there was just so many reasons why I didn’t do well at the role. But one misunderstanding from me, and how I worked with these young adults was that I didn’t respect them going into it, I felt like they had to earn the respect. And because of that, we were immediately at an impasse. I was, quote, serving them by, you know, doing all this programmatic things that should help them. But I felt like if they didn’t respond in kind, or they didn’t, you know, if they didn’t act, trustworthy, then I wasn’t gonna respect them. And that’s not how someone thrives. Somebody thrives when you respect them first.

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And then they start to become a different person. Am I saying that you need to consistently get hurt and hurt and hurt. That’s not actually what I’m saying.

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But respect can be your behavior and your words about them, but you’re still guarding your heart on the inside, they can’t have all of you, if they’re not trustworthy, that’s, that’s natural. That’s, that’s, I think, wisdom, you don’t, you don’t put your pearls before swine as Jesus talks about. But if you do not respect them, that’s what he needs to kind of breathe easy and to relax a bit and, and maybe he gets out of the fighting posture fighting for his needs. And he gets into the, okay, I’m respected, I can see, you know, once once your stop feeling like you have to fight for your needs, then you can kind of hmm, look around and what, what do I need to fix about my life or I need to fix about myself. So what is the opposite of respect? Well, I didn’t have a clear understanding of this. And that’s why I was very disrespectful to my first husband, and then got it wrong a second time with my second husband. And I was just like, why is this happening? Again, I thought I had all this SEC stuff figured out. And I, you know that that was an issue in my second marriage, but the controlling, and the disrespect was and I felt like, well, he wasn’t trustworthy. My goodness, he can’t seem to figure out to do anything. You know, he’s just unmotivated. And I’m doing everything from our finances to my work and to just everything I felt like I was doing everything but goals and that this and that, that he just was not motivated to do any of it. And I would have to tell him what to do and I would have to correct him and I would have to we would just have so much discord. And what I didn’t realize was I was neglecting or not allowing him to have something that’s so important to him that he’s not going to feel energized without it. Just like if I’m not listened to if I’m not cherished, I’m not gonna feel like I can be me. It’s just what I need. So some changes I made was very specific words that I would use. Sounds crazy. Laura Doyle of surrendered wife, that’s a book that I read. And it really showed me a lot of this practically it’s not a Christian book. So just be aware, put it on, you know, read it with a lens of what can I learn from this, but the things that I learned, and then I kind of molded as I lived it out was just being careful about your words. We don’t know how far words go in our specific language. So there’s words like we should, we should, okay, that means I should, but it also means you should, which is actually telling him what to do? So the word we should, you should obviously that needs to be out of your vocabulary. You need to, we need to, because again, that’s telling him what to do. We have to you have to both of those, those are the same, he still receives that as a command. And and you just think about that you would not command someone else around whether maybe you’re your kid, you would do that to maybe a dog. But now your husband, he’s he was a full grown man before you married him, you don’t have to tell him what to do. That’s not okay. I hear you because I used to do that. So any kind of command, you can’t, we can’t. You have to we have to, I mean, these are the kinds of things anything that can be interpreted as a command has to get out of the way you speak to him, just has to stop.

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And even the way you ask him favors, my husband and I this may sound overboard, but I desperately want this man to feel respected. I want him to be his best self. So I am going to go overboard, if you will, to show him day in and day out that He is respected. I want him to feel his fullest his best. I want him to breathe deeply and easily. I want him to be himself. So yes, I am going to bend over backwards to make sure he knows he is respected in our home. So things that are so silly, maybe of like, Hey, honey, do you mind? Like that? Is the phrase I used before asking of a favor? Or would it be too much to ask you to XYZ? And so I don’t you know, I don’t make him a honey do list? unless we’ve agreed to that in the beginning of you know, would it be too much if I if I had some things on here to that we just keep in mind. The other thing and again, I’ll I’ll credit this to Laura Doyle is the way you ask for things that you want. So just because you’re saying you’re taking all these things out of your vocabulary, now the things that you say when you’d like something done is that’s the way you say it, I’d love I’d love to go to such and such a place for this reason, or I’d like to go do that. Or I’d like us both to do that is that something you’re open to those phrasing is sharing your heart, your your your sharing, you would like these kinds of things, but know that you’re going to have to just let it go let the end result go. He is a free man. He gets to come or he gets to stay home, you get to go or you get to go by yourself. No big deal. It’s okay that you guys are not joined at the hip. When Jesus talks about they become one flesh. He’s not talking about you show up at all the parties together. You agree on all your home design decorations. He’s not talking about that. One flesh makes it very clear what we’re talking about flesh. There’s there’s emotional, spiritual, physical intimacy, physical sexual intimacy, and all of that emotional, spiritual, and physical that all goes into the sexual experience with your spouse, we’re talking about flesh, flesh on flesh. So the fact that you’re not aligned in certain ways in your life, that’s okay. You can let that go. You can let that go. It doesn’t have to be the same. You want him to be the man God made him to be. You don’t want to force him into the man you think he should be? One Very Important thing is when you cross the line into from wife mode, which again is seeking to admire respect and wholehearted sexual intimacy, when you cross out of that place to telling him what to do, teaching him correcting him, criticizing him, he doesn’t have the space for the Holy Spirit’s conviction anymore. Because it has turned that space that could have been for the Holy Spirit’s conviction, you have filled it, because now he’s just angry at you for not respecting you Is that making sense, you have taken up the emotional capacity that he could have felt conviction, or guilt for the way he treated you for the way he treated someone else. Any of that you have now inserted yourself and now he’s just angry at you. So I’ll just give you an example to try to exemplify that. Basically, you have displaced the emotions that he should have been having. So let’s say he he yelled at the kids. And to you that is just heartbreaking that he would yell at the kids. So one way, you could say, Aren’t you kidding me? You can’t do that. Did it up and you and you really, you know, get on him for not for what he said and what he did. Okay, so now, both of you are at odds, both of you are, you know, that probably wasn’t the end of the conversation, there’s probably was back and forth and back and forth, and lots of pain and lots of woundedness and maybe days of not talking or tension. And then it just, you know, the kids are affected, everyone’s affected negatively in your home. So that’s one option. The other option would be the wife

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is quiet. She observes what happened. She invites her son to come and get a snuggle with her if he needs it.

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And basically, it gives that man the opportunity to be with himself. And to have the conviction of the Holy Spirit that that was wrong. And maybe she circles back when the sun is, you know, is okay and feels more at peace. And she says, Honey, how are you feeling about that? How are you doing?

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Is everything okay? And she just listens, and she’s respectful. But she lets him share the shame he feels around how he spoke to his son. I mean, my husband and I have had so many experiences that are like that. And no, we’re not perfect parents, and we are getting better little by little. But if we don’t have a safe space, for him, to confide in me and the mistakes he’s made, and me to confide in him the mistakes I’ve made, we’re not going to get better. But if I just criticize him and critique him and force him try to force him, he’s just going to throw up his hands and say, forget it. I’m not doing this parenting gig because it is too hard. You you do the interaction with the kids. And then he’s not he’s not going to be the engaged dad that he could have been if you had stayed in your wife’s zone and allowed the Holy Spirit to do his work on his heart, you’re not the Holy Spirit to your husband, you shouldn’t be you get to pray for him. You could just support him, you get to tell him the things you love that he did. Because if he’s engaged in your son’s life at all, bravo, you know how many dads are not engaged in their kids at all? So that means if he’s engaged at all there are things he’s doing well, maybe there are plenty of things he’s not, but start with the things he is doing well. And so that’s the admiration piece I talked about earlier. That’s when you can have a goal for yourself three compliments a day. You know, maybe if you don’t compliment at all right now get to one a day and then two a day and the three day but you want to compliment him. You want to tell him the glimmers that you see in him. You want him to feel like he is growing into the man. He should be when you see that and I think that God has allowed us women to have a stronger pulse if you will, on the fruits of the Spirit. I don’t know why. But it seems like gentleness and kindness are not as hard for women as they are for men. I mean, I’ve really have never heard of a woman leader ever getting people to go to war, maybe maybe they’re out there. But General, it doesn’t happen. Most of the, you know, violent crimes happen by men. I mean, there’s just, you know, in the extremes, there’s mostly men that are doing that. And it’s just, I think the way God made women a little differently. And I, I just want you to recognize that your prayers have power, your prayers, letting the Holy Spirit, the God of the universe, do his work in your husband, is the power you have not forcing him, not pushing him, not correcting him. But allowing yourself to be meek and humble in your home. And apologizing when you get it wrong. I have disrespected my husband many times, without meaning to even sometimes, sometimes not even having my head on straight and not thinking about it or whatever. But sometimes it’s just a legitimate mistake, that was an error on my part, and I just apologize, but screaming at him yelling, even when I get upset, and and we are in a discussion that starts getting way too heated, in the midst of heated discussions, nothing good is going to happen. No one is at a place of receptivity. And so the best thing to do is take a break, the best thing to do is take a break. And yes, you can go to sleep, even between when an argument has not been resolved. No, you’re not going to go to sleep angry. That’s not what it is. You give it to God and you say God, I trust you with this. I am hurt. I am upset. But God, I trust you with this, I’m going to let it go, I’m going to sleep. I’m going to trust that you’re going to work things out. So no, don’t go to sleep angry, but don’t hash it out and fight it out before your spouse before you go to sleep. That’s ridiculous. That’s not a biblical notion. Don’t go to sleep angry means that you work that out with God. Not angrily fighting with your husband. Do you ever notice this happens with my kids all the time, bed night, a bedtime is tough. But when we wake up, oh, it’s so peaceful. And everyone’s smiling. And the first few hours of the day is just remarkably peaceful.

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Something about sleep. And actually, scientifically speaking, it’s real. Your brain gets kind of cleaned out from all the waste that’s been going on throughout the day, like sleep is real in terms of the way God made it. It’s it’s a, it is just wonderful. So let yourself sleep and get to a place where you can be respectful. If you notice, you’re in a spot in the argument where you’re just like this is this is going nowhere. And all we’re doing is hurting each other. And so when I start to feel myself not able to calmly present my feelings. That’s when I asked for a break. And I asked for it respectfully. And my husband has even commented afterwards, like, the next day like thank you for not saying what you’re feeling and not hurting me. And we’ll say that to each other. Because oh my gosh, he is the last one on earth I actually want to hurt. Right? It’s so funny. So many times we treat the acquaintances or the person we met at the bank or the person in the drive thru. We mean we are kinder to them than our own spouse, the one person that is for sure, in our assignment is our highest priority human. And then our kids, we treat them the worst. But you can change that. You can change that the way you treat your husband. So when you respect him, it doesn’t mean that he is 10 out of 10 trustworthy, it doesn’t. It means that you are tweaking your behavior in such a way that allows him to have what he needs to thrive and to actually change. Does that make sense? It’s kind of like, for women, let’s say, just as an example of being listened to, I know that if I’m not listened to, and I’m not held in my emotions and respected and honored, and my emotions and my feelings matter to my husband, it’s not a means for an end, there’s no ulterior motive. If I’m not able to feel, to share those things, then it’s really hard for me to be my best and all these other areas and change. And a lot of times I’ll share what’s on my heart, and then I’ll realize kind of what’s going on in my feelings. And it helps me to even discern what’s, what’s the next step, what’s God’s will. Hopefully, it’s, you know, obvious at this point that I do enjoy communicating and speaking and talking. I wouldn’t have, I don’t know 300 Plus episodes to, to show for it. If I didn’t like talking, I’m an external processor, it really helps me to either journal or speak or talk to my spouse about the things that are going on in my heart. And that makes me a better human, it helps me. And I think that’s the way with my husband and respect, it helps him become the man that God wants him to become. So when I serve Him in respect, and just recognize most of the things I want him to do, they just don’t matter. Or I’m a fully capable adult, and I can do them myself. There are tons of YouTube videos of women, of women who are figuring out things that are difficult physically. So if you really wanted these things in your house to be fixed, you could use that gumption instead of nagging him and disrespecting him, telling him what to do. You could do it yourself. And it’s okay. Then maybe there’s a season that you just do these things yourself, and you respect him and honor him and appreciate him. And eventually, things shift, but they cannot shift if you’re trying to Mother him and control him. He can’t become the man God wants him to be if you treat him like a kid. That’s not the way men are wired. He won’t feel filled up as a man if you treat him that way. And I need to address something that’s really painful. What if this is a man who has been unfaithful? What if this is a man who has engaged in pornography?

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This is hard. I agree this is hard. Because I’m not sitting in front of you and holding you in your tears. The best I can do is give you advice in how to change this. This is a process. But in the very same way. You cannot be the Holy Spirit to Him. You cannot tell him what to do. He has to come to that on his own. The only thing you can do is love Him the way He receives love. And you know what, if there has been adultery, there is biblical precedent for you to break it off. It’s makes it clear in the Bible. And if you cannot get to a place in your heart of forgiveness, then it is not worth it for you or your family to continue. And you may be able to forgive God may give you the grace to forgive, don’t let this go. And you need jerk reaction to automatically divorce. But at some point you have to either forgive and let it go and let him become the man that Jesus said you are white as snow based on what I have done for you on the cross. If you cannot see him that way. Then there’s a decision you have to make because he cannot live under the guilt of his sin forever. It’s not okay. He will not thrive as a man if you do not let it go and forgive. You have got to make a choice in your heart. Are you going to let it go and forgive him and let him thrive as the man that God wants him to be and and respect him in the way that he needs to be respected that God designed him to be respected? You have a choice to make Yes, you could say it’s over, it’s over. But if you think that it’s more important, for whatever reason, whether it’s children, whether it’s this or that, I don’t know, in my heart, in my mind for me, I would think long and hard about forgiveness First, I would spend time, months even making this decision as to whether or not I was going to leave in India at all. I would fight for my marriage in a way of attracting him back in a way of my forgiveness, in a way of just all sorts of things. But it does have to be a decision of forgiveness. And that’s important, no matter who you are, as a wife, if if all of the things I’ve talked about is just so hard, because he is untrustworthy, because he is, you know, a slog on the couch, doing nothing for our family, you’ve got to start with forgiveness, none of this is going to work out if you don’t forgive first. You’ve got to do it with a pure heart. You’ve got to forgive him of all the mess of the past, and even the horrifying mess. How could he do those things? That’s a process that I asked you to grow in and do over and over again, choose forgiveness. It is a process. The last thing I want to talk about is Esther. She was married to the worst of the worst. He was a murderer. He raped girls. I mean, he was the worst. I really think so. And he was allowing genocide to be planned in his kingdom. And he had a huge kingdom. So it was millions of people. He was planning that he was allowing it to happen in his own kingdom. And if that was even possibility, that means he was allowing hate upon hate between people groups. What kind of king is that? And Esther was not only an orphan, so she had tons of of sad things in her life. So maybe her parents were killed, I don’t know. But the one that did look after her that did raise her. Mordecai. She was captured and kidnapped. And then she had to sleep with the king. And then she was in a harem of other women that that were in the same boat.

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And when he approved an edict for all the Jewish people to be killed, I mean, my gosh, how scary what an awful human, the worst. And yet, she was wise. And when Mordecai discovered a plot to kill the king, that someone was going to kill the king. I mean, if I were him, I probably would have been like, great. Get him out of here. He’s the worst. But no. motorcade told Esther and Esther told the king, and the king was saved. So she respected him. But then as you continue in the story, when all these people are going to be killed at a certain date, they were all going to be just slaughtered. Everyone that she knows all of her people were going to be killed. And Mordecai asked Esther to go beg for their lives. And Esther didn’t even do what Mordecai said. Instead, she spent a lot of work preparing a feast. And then what usually results in death, that’s the law. If you go before the king, without him asking for you, you die. That’s the law. But she did it. She went before the king and, and and he extended his scepter. And he said, What would you like Esther up to half my kingdom, which is amazing that God gave her such favor. But she didn’t jump on that. She recognizes receptivity. But she also recognized who this man is she recognized a man and what he needs. She recognized that they had not been together for 30 days. And there was not a close connection. So if she had asked for what she wanted, it probably wouldn’t have been received because there was not a history of her loving Him the way that he receives love. And so she had already done all this work to prepare this giant feast. So she invited him and Haman to it. And then at the feast, he asked her again, Esther what what can I give you up to have my kingdom which there There’s no guarantee that the king was going to ask Esther any more times. She could have blown it. She could have, you know, that could have been it. But she was wise. And she recognized who a man was, once again, respect, once again, admiration and you know, they had a feast. And she asked him to come to the next feast that she was going to prepare tomorrow. So if you’re drinking and having great time, and your wife and all that, my assumption, which I’m pretty sure happened is she slept with them. And again, they’re connected. And because she was going to see in the next day, I mean, it makes sense that they had a wonderful time together. Now, I am sure in her heart, she didn’t give her she didn’t give her whole heart to this monster of a man. But she did actively know, what makes him feel filled up and loved. What would melt his heart towards her. And she again prepared this giant feast, which back in those days feasts, I am sure were not easy to prepare. But she did it again invited him again. And so this is the next, which is the third time he asked what she would like up to half his kingdom. And she told him Heymans plot to kill the Jews and would kill her as well. Haman was punished, and even killed. And then then she actually did beg him shortly thereafter, for all the juice she did back. And he elevated Mordecai and allowed Mordecai to, to write the next law, that the Jews could defend themselves. And ultimately, the Jews were protected. And maybe point six if I did a bunch of calculations and tried to do my research and tried to figure out how many what but but maybe somewhere around point 6% of the people that could have died in this atrocious genocide would have died. And those were not the Jewish people. Those are the people those were the armies that would have attacked them that would have tried to kill them. Just point 6% of that army was killed, that ultimately protected

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all the Jewish people. And so that’s a story to note that the worst of the worst, because of Esther’s wisdom around who a man is, his heart could be changed. His heart could be changed. I mean, I just it sounds crazy. But imagine if, if Hitler could have had one. I mean, if it Hitler’s wife was like an ester, could could that have that entire atrocity not happened of World War Two. I mean, that’s the kind of dramatic change that Esther all by herself did. Because she was employing wisdom. Now, she also asked everyone to fast and pray. So God definitely had his hand on this, but she employed wisdom. No, did she give him his her whole heart? Did she respect him? Because he deserved respect, quote, unquote, no, no, he didn’t know he deserved to be treated like the worst. And yet, that wasn’t wisdom. That wasn’t what was going to change the heart of a king. And that will not change the heart of your husband. So if you want your husband to be a good man, a man that follows Jesus, employing wisdom, respecting him, treating him better than he deserves, quote, unquote, is God’s Well, I believe. So let me pray for you. Father, I ask God that the wife listening to this, wherever she is in her, her space with her husband, God, whether she’s at a spot of needing to forgive him and let things go with the past or even the very recent. Lord, I ask for your sweet kind, conviction. God, it’s your kindness that leads us to repentance. You want a closer walk with her? And if there’s bitterness and resentment, and hurt, and anger that is built up over these years or decades, God I asked for the grace that she would have to forgive him and let it go. That that is her first task. And after that God give her the grace to respect her husband, not in a way that is disempowering or makes her feel like a doormat, but is a noble calling that truly could change this man’s heart if she were to respect him and let you Holy Spirit, do your work. And she wouldn’t run around trying to be His Holy Spirit. God give her the grace, to have insight to cling to you the real strength, the real one with power over this man. Help her to love Him the way He receives love and heal their marriage God heal their marriage. In Jesus name. Amen. All right, well, I am trusting that what you needed to hear is what you would be left with. If you need immediate help with your marriage go to delight your marriage.com/cc either a man or woman can apply and we’ll pair you with a husband or a wife to see how we can serve and help you help you transform your marriage. God bless you. Thanks for listening.