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Sometimes we look at our blowups and wonder — how did we even get here?

How did a wrong turn, an unpaid bill, an unwashed dish, or a burnt potholder… turn into World War III?

What happened here?

And why is this kind of nonsense tearing our family apart at its foundations?

It’s because you’re not really fighting about a potholder.

You’re fighting about all the unmet expectations from the years and years of pain you’ve experienced. And so is your spouse.

How do you get out of this cycle?

And more important: what does Jesus require of you in this cycle?

What does it matter in eternity whether or not you succumb to these kinds of blow-ups?

Well, my goal is to give you a bit of fear of the Lord to decide you are going to be a real follower of Jesus and the blow-ups aren’t gonna fly.

I hope you’ll listen in with an open heart and a desire to grow and be edified. And ultimately a desire to grow closer to God’s will for you.

Blessings,

Belah

PS – Two things:

1 – if you haven’t yet checked, there are a ton of helpful free resources here: delgithyourmarriage.com/free

2 – if you need immediate help, go to delightyourmarriage.com/cc to get a free Clarity Call where someone from my team will speak to you deeply about your specific situation and see if we can help.

transcript

0:02
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, this is Bella, I’m so grateful that you’re joining me on this conversation. What we’re talking about is how a lot of times, things kind of come up out of the blue in some really bizarre way. And whether you’re a husband or a wife, you just lose it on your spouse. And I want to talk about why that happens. And I want to talk about how to turn that dynamic around. And maybe you even just feel at this point, like you cannot stand your spouse, listening, because that’s what we’re going to be talking about. Now, if you’re in a spot before we get started, I just want to mention, if you’re in a spot of real desperation in your marriage, we want to help, don’t continue this. I heard somebody, actually Michael Hyatt, if you’re familiar with him, I really appreciate his work on leadership, and business. And I heard him say the other day, that when he was getting really I think he went to the hospital like three times because his stress level work was so high. And the third time getting to the doctor, the doctor asked him like, what is your life about why what’s going on in your life. And Michael explained it to him. And the doctor said, Listen, if you don’t make some serious changes, the next time I see you, I might not be able to help you. And that really took Michael by surprise. And that caused him to really change some huge things in his life. But that’s what I don’t want you to get to I want if you see the signs, if you see the red flags in your marriage, get help now, don’t get help. And I’m talking to men, a lot of times where they say they only got a wake up call. Honestly, when it when the whole car was running on fumes, and the engine was about to explode because or die or whatever happens after the whatever happens when when there’s no oil, and then you know, it works for a little while longer, but then it just completely dies and it’s it’s dead, it’s gone. That’s what I don’t want you to get to. So notice if there’s a check engine light on your car, and then take that as a warning, and make the changes that you need to whether you’re a husband or wife. And so my invitation is to get on a call with one of my clarity advisors. And both of these wonderful, wonderful clarity advisors have been through the program and seen the transformation in their own marriages. And they suffered for decades, and then by God’s grace, the programs that they themselves will be sharing with you. If they think you’re right fit. They took they took the plunge, they got the transformation. And so why not get your story in front of them, they’ll walk you through it, they’ll take you by the hand, they’ll listen, you know, this is a $300 value, consultation, essentially a clarity call getting you really, really clear on what is going on in your marriage. And if they think they can help you they’ll share with you some of the program options but you know, we invest in you first with a possibly a two hour long process of two different causes. It’s great. It’s really, really fantastic. But if you do need help, if you’ve got the check engine light on your marriage, go to delight your marriage calm slash CC and find out how you can really change this thing. You know, we can’t change our spouse, we can change ourself, and by God’s grace that influences everyone we’re around, including our spouse. So let’s go ahead and dive into this really vital topic. I’ve worked with people who got to a spot where they almost couldn’t breathe around their spouse they just they entered the room and their skin started crawling like they couldn’t even almost have panic and anxiety just by being near their spouse.

5:01
Another feeling, you know, some people respond to almost the same kinds of dynamics of unhealth in a marriage. But with a different physical response. Another one is, is just, you’re so hurt, that you’re angry, you are so angry, but it’s anger is covered up by hurt. Because a lot of times, especially for men, the only emotion that’s even acceptable in our society, for a man to feel a lot of times is anger. That’s the only thing maybe his father showed. And there was never any awareness of it’s not anger, it’s, it’s based on hurt, it’s based on an unmet expectation and unmet desire. You know, some, some of the expectations are not appropriate to have, but some are legitimate. And, and some, you know, kind of came with the, with the whole bundle of being married. And, and those might have been expectations that you and your spouse committed to early on in your marriage, and then it fell apart. And so you’re at a spot, now of absolute hurt in your marriage. And, and when I say unmet expectations, let me just be clear, you know, a lot of times for women, I see them, just distraught and destroyed by the fact that their husband, maybe came into marriage, this romantic guy who absolutely would fall all over the place to make sure, like, bend over backwards is what I mean, to make sure that he romances his wife, where he has flowers delivered at her job, and he is especially intentional about having surprises and date nights and all of this, and then over the years, it just completely dies off. And now, you know, she’s lucky if she even gets a card for an anniversary. And, you know, maybe she is just really frustrated that all of the leadership responsibilities in their home spiritually, financially, everything else falls on her plate, like she feels like she’s the man in the relationship. And she’s hurt. She felt like wait a second, I married a guy who was extremely capable. And now he’s acting like I’m his mother. It’s a really painful thing to be in. Or maybe he spends all of his time at work. And he doesn’t prioritize her spending time with her giving her affection, those sorts of things. And so maybe those are expectations that really, they’re kind of, they’re reasonable, because you establish that from the beginning of your relationship. So it’s hurtful when those expectations go unmet. And it was a slow slide, day by day, week by week, month, by month, year by year, decade by decade. And at this point, there’s so much hurt, that it’s maybe angry, maybe it’s numb, maybe it’s under the surface constant dissatisfaction, rolling your eyes frustrated, annoyed. You just don’t like your spouse. So maybe you’re the wife in a situation close or somewhat dissimilar to that. But there may be elements that you can apply to your own heart. And maybe you’re a husband that felt like oh my gosh, in the beginning of our relationship, she was super flirty, and they made sexual innuendo innuendos all the time and intimacy was even exciting and frequent early on in your relationship, marriage and and then things just, you know, maybe life got busy, maybe there were kids, maybe things just really shifted and now not only is there not frequency that she initiates or maybe there’s just it’s just complete routine, or duty. And she’s not even engaged. You know, and it’s like, wait

9:41
a second, I thought I thought we were gonna you know, keep this up. What you you know, I kind of signed up for the relationship that we had and now it’s just completely gone. You know, and a lot of times, you know, men are very affectionate to have a want the hugs In the kisses on the back rubs in the long makeout sessions, they crave that even if it doesn’t lead to anything sexual at that moment, you know, so maybe, maybe that’s how you’re feeling too as a husband that that a lot of these things just dropped off these expectations that you, you know, legitimately had because this was your experience of your relationship for a long time. So it would make sense that Okay, so now I commit to life with this person, it’s because this person who I knew them to be in the beginning, I would expect them to continue to be that person. But no, she became this controlling monster who corrects me and criticizes me and doesn’t initiate and isn’t interested in sex and would rather read a book than have anything to do with me. I mean, those are painful, hurtful, feelings. And so that’s under the surface. And on top of it is, is numbness or anger or even apathy, some men experience their their pain in apathy, pretending like it doesn’t matter. Because they have closed their heart. So they, they can’t be hurt, or they, they, it’s too painful. It’s too painful even to hope that things would change. And I see that so often. You know, it’s just too painful to think, well, maybe mine, maybe my marriage could change. Yeah, I hear all these other guys change. And, you know, maybe you’ve been listening to my podcast, and you and you actually hear their voices describing their situations and their stories and you’re like off, but it wouldn’t work for me. My wife’s totally different. She’s got that data. There’s, we’ve got that, that there’s all this. And I’ll address that later. But the point that I want to make to you is, why does all this erupt into these massive discord, you know, maybe, maybe there’s a lot of fighting in your house, just strife. Like, you almost feel like you leave your job, you come home to your next job, because there’s so much you got to be on your toes, there’s maybe walking on eggshells, you’re, you know, got to be careful not to say the wrong thing, or you hit a landmine careful not to do the wrong thing, or forget to wash your plate or forget to do this, because boom, it’s gonna erupt into this giant, massive thing where you guys are on a standoff and you defend and you fight, and you have to justify, and you have to be really good at your words. And then you have to come back and text battles and all of this. And then there’s days of silence and acting like roommates. And I mean, my goodness, that kind of pain, the both of you experience maybe on a daily. And so what I’m hoping to paint for you, is an understanding of why, why do these giant things happen. And this painful arguments were ultimately you’re raising your voices, you’re saying things, maybe you don’t really even mean. But just because you’re so angry, the whole point is to win the argument. So you’re going to say whatever hurtful thing you can, you’re going to bring up whatever painful experience that happened in the past, whatever mistake the other person made, whatever mistake you made, they’re going to throw it at you these rhetorical knives. And you both end up bloody and hurt and pain and frustrated all of that. Okay, if this is hitting too close to home, I want you to listen up. Because both of you are carrying the hurts of the past into that moment. It’s not about the pot holder, and whether or not you burned it, or it’s in the wrong laundry basket or it accidentally whatever. I don’t know bought the wrong one. It’s not about the pot holder. It’s about the pain. You all have experienced the unmet expectations, the hurt feelings, you are both bringing to that moment and that situation.

14:22
So I hope you’re tracking with me that you are bringing unforgiveness to this moment. You are you are they are Yes. But you can only change you. So I’m talking to you that you are bringing that pain to this moment. And that’s why if if you were seeing your spouse as a blank slate, giving them the grace, then you’d be able to hold your tongue in night, not bite back and not have a meal. mean spirited attack towards them, or be able to just calmly respond or calmly take a break, because you know, you’re getting too emotional and you’re about to say something that would harm you and the other person and the relationship in general. You’re bringing unforgiveness. And I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy to forgive. But I am saying that if you are a follower of Jesus, that’s, that’s like, Christianity, one to one. It like if we actually are trying to be like Jesus, nobody treated Jesus the way he deserved to be treated nobody, even the people that were closest to him. Nobody treated him, like God. Nobody did. Even those that knew they saw the miracles, they walked with Him, they heard every single sermon he ever preached. And yet they couldn’t do it. They still let him down, over and over and over again. And I don’t mean just in the garden, when he said, Please, pray for me. I’m about to be killed. Pray that please. Even when he told them the future, and he said, you know, Peter, you’re gonna deny Me. And Peter, still, he still did it, he still made those mistakes. You know, Jesus knew they were going to do those things. And yet it didn’t, it didn’t change his choice to forgive them. Even the people that, you know, a week ago, they were saying Hosanna, all of this, I mean, he could have expected he should have expected that they would go from Hosanna. And the highest all of this, that palm leaves that coats the donkey, all the huge party for Jesus, which was appropriate, he should have been praised that way, those same people, just a week later are screaming in the streets, Crucify Him. Jesus had every reason to expect their commitment, their devotion, their worship, every reason. And yet he hung on the cross suffering at their hands. And he said, forgive them for they know not what they do. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. And we are called, we are called, you are called. To be like that. And I gotta say, if you’re not going to be like that with your spouse, you’re that person. You are that person, whether you are that way with your spouse or anyone else. Your spouse is your highest human assignment. highest priority. And if you’re not forgiving them, then you’re not forgiving your person. Forgiving your person. You can’t forgive you know, your whole church, family and your boss and your friends and all this stuff and not forgive your spouse. That’s that’s not following Jesus. He sacrificed it all for you. And you’re not going to forgive your spouse, but you expect Jesus to forgive you. I see a lot of myself in Peter. Sometimes I’m like, Oh, Peter, I would have asked Jesus those questions. Yes, I need I need clear clarity. So here we are. Matthew 1821 says Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered. You know, let me just say, I feel like I would need that clarity.

19:21
I’d be like, okay, so I need some boundaries around this. You say forgive. Okay, great. I need to be clear. So should I. I’ll give them a warning. The next time I’ll give them another morning. I mean, seven seems generous, really, Jesus so So seven times I’ll be good. And then Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but 70 times seven. And so, for me, that is amazing to think that if I can count 490 times, I would then be off the hook. 491 You’re good to keep holding those, those grudges. But then it says, Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold. And just to let us know what that means. It’s it’s worth about 20 years of a day, laborers wages. So basically, he would be working 20 years in order to pay that back. And then, in verse 25, since he was not able to pay the master, to pay, the Master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. So to be clear, to be sold, that means that he, his wife, and children would all be sold into slavery, like, Oh, what is that risk here? This is a life of suffering that he is about to endure. And then in verse 26, it says, At this, the servant fell on his knees before Him, be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything. The servants master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 silver coins. And so what does that mean? That is the usual daily wage of a day. So that’s one one day and he grabbed him and began to choke him, pay back what you owe me. He demanded. First, 29, his fellow servant, fell to his knees and begged him, be patient with me, and I will pay it back. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Can you believe that? Like what? He just got forgiven 20 years of debt, and this guy through his co worker, who, who owed him one day of debt, and threw him into prison. Then the master called that servant in You wicked servant. He said, I cancelled that debt of yours because you begged me to? Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he could pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. If that’s not scary, I don’t know what is. If that doesn’t strike the fear of the Lord in you, I don’t know what will. If you think that Jesus is going to forgive you, of all your debt, and yet, you’re going to hold all that you’re gonna hold the day’s wages against your spouse, what, what in the world? What do you think in? Don’t, don’t do this. Just don’t. Don’t do that. I mean, here’s what we need. As followers of Jesus, we need the fear of the Lord. That’s that kind of stuff. It should scare you straight. It should scare you. It should make you so convicted.

23:54
Like there is scary stuff in the Bible. And if you’re not reading it, there’s no way you can know who Jesus is who God is. And the fear of the Lord. Don’t be a cultural Christian. Don’t do that. We don’t know. We don’t know what’s gonna look like in eternity. But we have got to take this stuff seriously, because the people in the Bible did. Saul took this stuff seriously when he got thrown off his donkey and became Paul, you know, and he went from killing Christians to preaching the gospel of Jesus. He took it seriously. When he got convicted, he changed his ways immediately. And I was reading this this morning, Axe 931. It says, so the Church throughout all Judea and Galilee and some Mariya had peace, and was built up. And that was as a result of Paul actually, if you read that, that chunk of Christian scripture, and then it says, and was walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied that is such a good phrase, the church was walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. I want you to get such fear in you that it motivates you to forgive your spouse. Not because your spouse deserves it, not because they deserve it. Not because they started changing, not because they started meeting your expectations and even what you actually deserve as a spouse. No, I am sorry. But that’s not my invitation. I don’t think that’s Jesus invitation. When he says that story to us. It’s scary stuff. That’s not the invitation. The invitation is because God forgave you. That’s why you forgive. Not because you deserve to be paid. Not because you deserve a you know, I scratch your back, you scratch mine, like I’m doing this so that you’ll do something for me. That’s not what we signed up for when we said, You know what, Jesus, you are my King, I surrender it all. We can’t, we can’t sing those songs on Sunday morning and live completely opposite all the days of the week. That doesn’t. That’s not that’s not being a follower of Jesus. He asks for our heart, he asks for our soul, our mind our strength, all of it. That’s called being a follower of Jesus. So no, a potholder is silly. Don’t let all the pain and the hurt of the past come into the present moment. That’s where you’ve got to die to yourself. You’ve got to be a person who who swims in forgiveness. Who Who forgets the pain, who who acknowledges it in order to let it go. I don’t like so many people suggest that, you know, if it’s bothering you, you got to bring it up. You got to have some direct communication dot dot, dot, like, well, sometimes things bother me. Because I’m mean. Sometimes things bother me. Because I’m judgmental. Sometimes things bother me, because it’s all up in my head. It doesn’t mean I need to tell my spouse, it doesn’t mean that I need to tell anyone, it might mean that I need to go to God and say, You know what? There’s some things in my heart that you still need to work out in me, I need some help. Now, certainly there are times that, you know, we can we can take some reflection and say, God, is this something I need to bring up? Because I’m happy to bring it up. Like if we need to process through something important? Let’s do it. I’m not saying that, you know, you avoid hard topics, but you might avoid things that are going to unnecessarily disconnect you that it might be letting it go not sweeping under the rug, not avoiding it because it’s hard. But is it going to matter in eternity? Does it matter in your spouse’s walk with God? Is this conversation going to attract them towards Jesus or not? Does it need to be handled right now? Can it be handled when emotions are calm?

28:38
You know, I, my husband is he’s amazing. Sometimes he will bring stuff home because you know, on some website like Craigslist or something, he’ll find it for free. And it’s this great thing that he just loves. And he’ll bring it home and put it up like I’m thinking of the shelf, put it up in the in the bathroom, and I just hated it. From the very beginning. I hated it. And I knew he was excited about it. So I just didn’t say anything. Oh, okay. You’ve got a shelf up there. All right. And that was about it. And I would say three months later. I, I think actually he decided to take it down. Because it wasn’t at there wasn’t the right size or shape or whatever. He decided to take it down. And at that point, I said, Oh, I actually am grateful you took that. And so there are times that like really didn’t matter did it? Did I need to disrupt our piece? Because I had a judgement about something that just it really doesn’t matter. Now, sometimes we make jokes and I say things that are fun because we have a culture of playfulness that I hope you’re developing in your marriage. But I might say, you know, my husband, he just, he loves bringing free stuff home. He’s just a great finder of value. And the truth is he does sometimes, like the other day, he brought home, an instant pot. So now I have an instant pot and an emotion blender. Both of those are high ticket items that I got for free, because my husband is so good at finding those things. So sometimes it’s like a huge benefit. And sometimes I just have to hold my tongue. And, you know, I think there was one time that he actually surprised me with something, which was a really great surprise. And I told him how much I appreciated it, and how grateful I was for the gift and all of these things. But I didn’t like the design. And so I think it was two years later, maybe one one year later, but it was something we used, we would use all the time. And it was something that he had kind of like handcrafted. And so I like from from a professional. So it was a big deal if I was going to ask it to be different. But I think it was two years later that I said, you know, I would love this to be this design, is it possible we switch things over? So he actually had to pay that same person to tweak it, so that I would be happier. But we had two years of peace and connectedness and eventually I got what I wanted. So the rest of our marriage now we have this really special thing that I that I love the design. But why why would I demotivate him in the moment and cause him to feel like a failure and like he can’t make me happy? And instead just bask in the good that I can. And longer term maybe maybe I’ll comment on something, maybe not. Maybe I’ll let it go and just bask in the good. And so yeah, I just want to encourage you, the most important thing is that you forgive like Jesus forgave you. You should have the best, most connected marriage because you’re a Jesus follower. That’s what you should have. Regardless if they are truly, regardless if they are check out. First Corinthians seven says God has called you to peace. You should be able to love with no strings attached because you love Jesus. So that’s my encouragement is today. Today, forgive today, let things go. And what does that look like practically? Write it out all all the stuff you’re holding gets your spouse, write it all on a list, the things that hurt you write it on a list, get it out of your head as this dark cloud of suffering, write it all down. If it’s more than 490 491 on you can you can keep Alright, so those are the ones that you can definitely hold against your spouse but just kidding. Write it all down and and put on some worship music and just read it to God and say, God, I need you to help me to let this go. Help me to let this go. And do this commit to this process of forgiveness. Day in and day out until you get some freedom here. God will help you.

33:35
So Lord, I just asked in Jesus name for the person listening, you know, that they need this, you know, they need you know, I need you know, we need forgiveness in our hearts to fully love the way that you want us to. Lord, not because our spouse deserves it. But because you do. But because you deserve it, our whole hearts. And if we’re going to follow you with everything, we have got to do this. Lord, I pray that their marriage would turn around because of their new eyes that they see their spouse with. Lord let these tiny little things fall away. These tiny little things fall away that they would live in peace with each other connection, enjoyment of who the other is. Because they follow you. Lord, we love you and thank you for what you’re doing in their hearts. Thank you that they listened through this whole podcast. They did not have to do that. I believe you’re doing more than I can even imagine in their hearts and in those that listen. We love you Jesus. Amen. Thank you for listening, and I just I just wish you a wonderful, wonderful day. And I look forward to talking to you next week, God bless, love you. Bye bye