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SO much packed in here, but I tried to narrow it down so you have a helpful summary. We go deep in this episode, I really think it’ll help you.
Three points are made in this episode:
1 – Your feelings are God given and He wants to do something because of them.
2 – It is healthy and even Jesus-like to express your frustration emotions (without hurting anyone) and grieve through your sad emotions (tears are important).
3 – Regardless of your lot in life, it is your responsibility (not your family of origin, perhaps you didn’t have a good role model, maybe you were exposed to porn, or your wife doesn’t have wholehearted sex with you every other day…) to correctly follow God with your emotions.
A lot of men learned to deal with frustration through masturbation and/or pornography. It was a very tactical way to get frustration out of their body.
However, that stunted the opportunity to get frustration out in a healthy way, so that their brains could develop in the way God wanted it to — with empathy, gentleness, and kindness.
So, they came into marriage assuming they’d be able to replace their “frustration valve” of pornography with their wife’s body.
And surprise… they’re still frustrated.
Because that’s not Jesus’ way.
They may struggle now with anger, aggression, bitterness, resentment, being judgmental…
Sex addiction, still…
Alcoholism, video game addiction, binge-watching nonsense…
Longing for your past sexual escapades…
Daydreaming about divorce so you could get a new partner…
Other similar things are unhealthy ways of expelling the frustration.
(Things that, if it was printed on the front page of a newspaper, you would be ashamed of.)
I want you to know — I am proud of you for even reading this email — and if you’re in any of these loops — I think God is proud of you for facing it! Bravo!
Listen, this is not just for men, but I hope this will help you process what’s going on with you a bit more.
Feelings are good. They’re God given. They tell us something. It may be that WE need to process, mature, slow-down, feel grief, etc. so we can feel empathy…
I want you to listen to this episode because I really think it could help you and help all of us pursue Jesus better.
Love & Blessings,
Belah
PS – If you want to dedicate a short season of your life to DO this practically. To live this out for the betterment of your marriage & intimacy but also in service to your kids and ministry — I’d love to invite you to join a free Clarity Call.
On that call, a Clarity Advisor who is specifically trained in helping you draw out your emotions that may be pent up and looking like anger and self-righteousness instead of frustration and sadness.
People who chose not to move forward with our recommendation because of their current season of life or any other things have emailed afterwards to share how helpful it was for that empathetic and listening ear.
We’d love to help, schedule a call: delightyourmarriage.com/cc
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Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. Your joining me belah Rose is I dive deep into the beauty, power and truths about intimacy. Learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight
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your marriage.
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Hello, hello, this is Bella, I’m so grateful that you are on this call with me. Whether you are nearby, or whether you’re far away, it’s just amazing that we get to spend time together, I’m, I’m so grateful. And I want you to just take a moment and feel the Father’s love for you. Deep breath in, deep breath out. The Lord of the Universe has his eye on you.
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And he loves you. And he is eager to be proud of you. He loves you. He created you. He knows you. He’s got his eye on you. He smiles when he thinks of you. You are precious to him.
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And I just feel like the fact that you listen to me the fact that you pursue these kinds of resources to grow and your love for others. And practically speaking in your love for your spouse how to do it. He’s so proud of you, this is huge. It’s so good that you want to love your spouse well, because you know what he loves your spouse to, and he wants your spouse to feel his love through you, through you. So I am just thrilled about this topic today, I think it’s gonna be really helpful for you, it’s been helpful for me. And before we dive in, I do want to let you know that our clarity of advisors are just, they’re wonderful. They’re wonderful humans, and they love serving you. And if you have listened for a while, or even if this is your first time, and you just are so excited to continue the journey, maybe the podcast has helped you. And maybe there are some gaps. Or maybe it’s helped you for a little while, but you’re just not sure how to maintain this kind of stuff. And, or, or maybe you like what you’re hearing and the philosophy seems right, but you’re just not sure how to practically do it. Or you’re like, gosh, there’s 300 Plus episodes here. And I don’t really know where to start or what really applies to me in my marriage. So that’s what are Clarity Calls do is they give you an understanding to zoom out an opportunity to zoom out, and then zoom back in of like, what is really happening. Where are the actual gaps in your understanding in the ways you approach your spouse, and then our clarity advisor can really dissect what’s going on and how to help you. Because by God’s grace, I would encourage you to listen to those transformation stories. They’re just, I mean, jaw dropping ly amazing. And our team gets to see way more than that on the inside. Because we definitely don’t share all of the transformation stories and plenty of people are not courageous enough necessarily to share on a video testimonial, their, you know, their intimate story. So it’s just so exciting when you get to listen and say, oh my gosh, that’s what God is doing. And yes, that is what God is doing. And we give Him all the glory for it. So today’s episode I am thrilled to share with you let’s go ahead and dive right on in.
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Today, we’re gonna be going over three skills that are super practical. Now I always want to give credit to the places that I kind of get my material. And these are very much taken from good inside. It’s Dr. Becky and she’s got a podcast. She’s got an online community and it came from her online resources. And it’s just fantastic. It’s parenting based work, but I want to kind of again utilize my experience and work with men and women in my work and see how we can adapt it for our purposes in marriage. So certainly there’s a lot of my own insights around these skills. But I want to give credit where credit’s due. And she’s got some really cool practical things in her resources, so check that out. Good insight is her as her podcast and her resources. All right, so first things first, this is all about having the skills you need to respond to situations with your spouse differently. So if you’ve listened to me for a while, you know, one of my big things is no arguments. You can have disagreements, but they do not need to escalate to arguments. In fact, when you get to a place of an argument where everyone’s emotions are high and elevated, you are really not able to do anything productive. In fact, for the most part, it just undermines your connection. And once you don’t have that connection, or it’s undermined for a day, an hour, a week, however long it lasts. I mean, you’re not, you’re not growing in connection, you’re either you’re you’re lessening that it’s just not a good idea. So what do you do in the midst, let me give you these three tools. Now, one thing Dr. Becky talks about, and I love her mindset here is that you have to practice it outside of the moment, you have to practice these skills before you need them. And that is so true. And I teach that as well, you have to get with these other like, for example, in my men’s program, I often pair people up and ask them to practice some of the skills we’re learning. So that on game day, when you’re with your spouse, you’re not trying to do this without having practiced you, you get it you know how to do this already. So first skill is, drumroll please. Deep breathing, deep breathing. Specifically, you want to do four counts of a deep breath in, do that with me out through your nose, that’s important through your nose, do some research in Google, if you’d like to understand the difference between nose breathing and mouth breathing, nose breathing is so much healthier for you. It’s It’s kind of crazy, when you dive into the research. It’s It’s amazing. So forever now, breathe through your nose. But from there, otherwise. Oh, and one thing for men, if you struggle with erectile dysfunction, and for women, it’s so healthy for you to hum, which is also through your nose. Because it releases nitric oxide in your body, which is exactly what those blue pills do. That men take often before, they need to have an erection if they struggle with that. So just a little insight. All right, that was a good teaching tangent, if you will. So breathe through your nose, four counts in,
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hold it and then breathe out eight counts. So the point is you want to breathe out twice as long as you breathe in. So instead of the mouth breathing very fast, that often happens when somebody’s feeling nervous or anxious or fearful or panicky. What you can do is change your physiology towards where you want to go. So you know that maybe you just got accused, you just got attacked, you know for for husbands, maybe you’re feeling disrespected. You feel like she’s calling you telling you that you’re not good enough, even though she’s using other words, but that’s the message you’re receiving. Okay, that’s a red flag, you know, you’re getting triggered the alarm bells are going off in your head. That is the signal that you need to take deep breaths, deep, slow breaths, because the natural thing is for your body to get in that alarm state. And when your body gets in that alarm state. What they call the lizard brain is the only thing that’s awake. So the front, I think it’s the the prefrontal cortex in front of your brain, which is the judging part of your brain, that judgment part of your brain kind of goes offline and then you’ve got your lizard brain which is basically the brain that you had when you’re a kid. That immature brain is the only thing that’s responding. And so then we do this, you know, sadly, absolute ridiculous things in these arguments because we don’t even have our judging brain online. So what you’ve got to do is do these deep, slow breaths, so that your brain stays awake your full brain, and you actually can access those judging moments. One thing to note, especially if you’re a husband, is that a lot of times women feel abandoned if you leave a situation in the midst of an argument. And that is very common, and something that I feel as well. When my husband doesn’t stick around for an important conversation to me, it makes sense that you would want to leave a situation and sometimes you may have to, and you may have to respectfully ask, honey, I can feel myself getting upset. And I don’t want to say anything that I would regret. So if you don’t mind us taking a break right now. But I know this is important, and I will circle back, you’ve got to say it calmly, you’ve got to say it with respect. And you’ve got to promise that you’re going to come back to it and you have to come back to it, which is the scary part, I know. But you do have to come back to it. So maybe both of you need a break, that’s totally fine. However, there are times that she just needs you to be there. And she needs you to breathe. And be there. The nice thing about breathing is that you’re still present, you can still pay attention. And you don’t have to, you’re not checking out your present, you can still listen, you can still understand you can still have that curious mindset. So focus on having your slow breath in, and double the pace of the breath out and do it through the nose. Because remember that anxiety, the frustration, all that is short breaths. But when you get to long breaths, that’s when you’re able to keep your whole brain at present. And then you’re able to slow your thoughts and stay in the curious mindset that’s super important. You want to be curious about how you
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how your spouse is feeling. Where are they coming from? Where is this coming from? What are they feeling underneath the words, because remember, words are just trying to communicate feelings. We’re just trying to communicate. And so maybe they’re coming out as imperfect accusations, and even meanness, but there’s some thing that’s underneath there, some woundedness, some, something that is going on underneath there. And so I invite you to deep breath, stay present. So that’s number one. Number two, is to have a mantra. And I love this mindset of what is some phrase I can cling on to in the midst of trying to hold her to hold together. And she has some ideas, I have some ideas I want to share. So one for her that I love, especially with parenting, but I think it also works with marriage as well, is I’m not broken. My child’s not broken. I’ve got this. So there’s a couple things there is we’ve got to understand, what are the fears you have in the midst of that what’s triggering what’s coming up for you? So a lot of times for men, it’s this disrespect piece that comes up. And so that might mean you’re feeling like, oh my gosh, why can’t I figure this out? Why can’t I do better? Why can I say something about you is coming up there. So in the moment, you know with your spouse, I’m not broken. She’s not broken. I’ve got this and that helps you to stay calm, stay calm, because if you’re not calm, and you allow her emotions to infect you, then it just escalates and escalates and escalates. She needs you to be the steady, calm leader that she can rely on. And then if you’re a husband, sorry if you’re a wife, it’s it’s a similar mindset. A lot of times you get flared up because the conversation is threatening. Your feelings of Safety, emotional safety, physical safety. Certainly if that’s an issue in your marriage, I mean that that’s even, that’s huge and terrible. But if it’s emotional safety as well, or just emotional safety, that that often just causes these huge alarm bells. And it’s hard to do anything but fight back with huge accusations and mean words and rhetorical knives. Right that leave both of you bloody and, you know, it’s really, you can never take back your words, right? And God willing, you’ll be able to forgive each other for those words, but there’s no, there’s no way you can take them back. So so be really careful with your words, dear wife, dear husband, even in the midst of frustrating feeling. So in the same way for a wife, this is exactly applicable to you this is what’s the mantra? I’m not broken, my husband’s not broken. I’ve got this. You know, that is what you can say to yourself in the midst. No, maybe that doesn’t make sense to you. Maybe there’s a totally different mantra you need. And here’s one that I think is really good, and biblical. Father, forgive him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Father, forgive him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Father, forgive him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Because in the midst of the accusations in the midst of the pain, if you can go to the place that Jesus went to, when he hung on the cross, when He was humiliated, tormented, when people laughed at him, and people literally tortured him. And he could respond by saying, forgive them, for they know not what they do. I mean, isn’t that the heart of Jesus, we want to be carrying around, isn’t that who we want to be to everyone in our lives, including our most important human assignment? Our own spouse?
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Yes, that is what we want. That’s what I want. And, you know, what I noticed sometimes is I get out of practice, I get out a practice of loving my spouse the way they receive love. And so we all do. You know, if I’m teaching this, I gotta practice. I mean, I think that means it’s a natural human thing to get out of practice. But if we can come again and again and again to the heart of Jesus. So So So in the midst of the argument, you’re breathing slow. You say forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing. And then another empowering thought, after that, I’ve got this, I can do this. And remember, in Philippians, where it says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, a lot of times, we’ll have that scripture on a bumper sticker or a baseball team’s shirt, or I don’t know, it just is interesting, because it, it doesn’t have the context of what that verse is talking about. But it’s actually talking about Paul being in prison, and saying, I know what the worst is. And I know what the best is because I’ve lived both. And I found out that even in the midst of the worst times, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So let me go ahead and read to you the beginning of the chunk of verses that gives some context. So for Philippians 410, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at length you have revived your concern for me, you were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I’m speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation, I am to be content, I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty, and hunger, abundance and need, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. Okay, and so, I would encourage you to, you know, read read the rest but I’ll I’ll Uh, add the very skip down a bit, verse 19, and my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. And so what I think is really great there, well, many, many great things is that no matter what is happening to him, how he is being tortured in prison. He’s saying God is going to supply. You know, God is giving him everything he needs, and God is going to supply their needs. And I think that that’s important for us to know in the moment, in the moment of frustration and the moment of anger, we can say, I can do this, I can do this, God forgive him for he doesn’t know what he’s doing, I can do this. So you need both of those. And I wanted to give you some scriptural backing because it scriptural God forgive her, she doesn’t know what he’s she’s doing. I can do this. So as your deep breathing, as you’re in the midst of completely getting blasted for something, you don’t deserve, God forgive her. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. I can do this, I can stay in this, I can have compassion, I can have grace for her. And again, these things have to be practiced outside of the moment. They have to be practiced outside the moment. And when I say practice, outside of the moment, some really good opportunities to practice this is during your day in random situations. So I don’t know if you’re like me, but if you are, sometimes my own email inbox, makes my heart move in the wrong way. Like even just a title, a caption that I don’t know, a subject line that I don’t, I don’t even know the contents of maybe it’s some promotional nonsense, and I’m ready to just have an accusing heart around. And in that moment, can I deep breathe, and I can say, God, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing. And say I can do this, which gives just a you know, even though it even though it’s tiny, it might be just some tiny whatever it may be. Or maybe you see sin in the world. And and that’s another opportunity instead of getting frustrated and angry and ruining your day. Can you say, God forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing. I can do this. What if it’s traffic instead of getting angry and making, you know, seeing that your heart is getting frustrated instead of Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing, I can do this. Right, I can do this, right, I can stay in this, I can still live in the fruits of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is in me, I can stay in the place of the middle of your will. I can walk like you Jesus, I can think like you Jesus, I can I spend my emotions like you, Jesus, I can do this. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me in the midst of where I am right now. That is the second tool. The third tool that Dr. Becky talks about is ngi. Find the M G I. I love this. What is MGIS she calls it the most generous interpretation. Look for the M G, I
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look for the most generous interpretation of what just happened. And again, you have to practice this outside of the situation. But we can use the example of traffic. Let’s say someone cuts you off and is, you know, driving ridiculously. And they certainly were not following the rules and you get angry. And it’s unsafe. And there’s so many reasons why you would get angry. But what’s the most generous interpretation? If we can look for that? Well, maybe their wife’s having a baby in the backseat and they need to get to the hospital. That’s often what my husband and I say when something crazy happens on the road. We’re like, Well, they probably are having a baby in the backseat. Let’s give them extra room. Get there, buddy, go, go go. And isn’t that a happier state of mind anyway? And then you’re not mad at every other car. And you’re not wasting your emotions on something just stupid. Do you mind me saying that? Because it just is why waste your emotions on something that is just why not just let it go. But in the moment, can we think of the most generous interpretation? Now the only way you can get to being able to do that in the moment is if you practice outside of the moment. So in the moment with your spouse, when you get to, oh, they must have misunderstood me, they must think that I’m XYZ, the only way you can get there is if you practice outside of it. So let’s say you guys had an argument, okay? We fail, we have to get back up, dust ourselves off. But then afterwards, you can reflect and say, can I find them? Ngi? Here? What’s the most generous interpretation of what just happened? What’s the most generous interpretation of what just happened? So let’s say, your wife is telling you how to load the dishwasher. And it just seems completely ridiculous to you why she would get so upset that you’re doing it, quote, the wrong way. All right, reflect later. What’s the most generous interpretation of that? Well, it might be that she wants to make sure that the dishes are clean, so that there’s no soap or suds or mess on it afterwards. And it doesn’t have to be washed again, and making sure the kids have have clean dishes to eat from. Like, I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. That’s so Okay, so now that you’ve got the most generous interpretation, that helps to give her grace, and it also helps to give maybe some insight where you could say, Honey, I, thanks for making sure you want this stuff clean. You know, is that is that the concern is the concern that you’re, you’re you’re worried about it not being cleaned for the kids, or, you know, and you give those, the benefit of the doubt another obvious way to say it, but when you give that kind of an explanation to it, then you’re not accusing or saying she doesn’t respect me, she thinks I’m stupid, those sorts of things, because that’s going to trigger you into ways that are not going to be kind ways of speaking to her and it’s going to cause your connection to, well, it’s going to cause you to disconnect emotionally, and then that, you know, can be a negative spiral to more and worse things. Or what if you interpret his telling you where to drive and being frustrated that you’re not going the fastest way? Of okay, what’s the most generous interpretation of his frustration there?
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Maybe it’s that he doesn’t want to waste gas. And he is really thinking about the financial impact of how we drive and where we go, because he’s taking care of our family financially. Gosh, that’s a generous interpretation. Okay. All right, well, thank you, honey for, for making sure that we don’t waste gas and want to make sure that we’re going in the right ways. And even if you say something like that, and he has an opportunity to reflect and be, you know, like, yeah, I am a little more magnanimous than I than I thought I am. And then, you know, people live up to the identities you give them a lot of times, and if you have a good identity that you have given your spouse, they, they will live up to that and a greater degree. But that’s the work you have to do is find the MGI. So in all these different circumstances, slowly, you’re gonna get better at these skills, if you practice them again, outside of the situation. Because if we remember that our spouse is our highest human assignment, game day, is when we’re with our spouse, Game Day is not when we’re with the grocery store clerk, and we say, Have a good day. And we smile. And we might even say, God bless you, like, great, that’s awesome. But that is way less important, though, in the way you greet your spouse in the morning, than the way you listen to your spouse when they have hard feelings going on, than the way you are patient with them. When they say make a mistake, or they say something that is wrong, or they present themselves poorly in a public situation. How do you respond to them? That matters more than your your conversations with acquaintances, it matters more, because what you’re doing is growing your character and when you have a good character. It shows in every other way. I’m growing in these ways, too. So don’t worry, I’m right there alongside of you. We’re all growing. But how do we do this? So that our hearts look more like Jesus? Here are three skills to practice. You and I get to practice together when you’re getting frustrated, and you need to excuse yourself politely from a situation so you can breathe. And you can think about what’s the most generous interpretation here. And you can say to yourself, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. And I can do this. I can do all things through you. Right? When you say those things, when you practice those things, when you do them, when you’re by yourself, it’ll be easier to do them with your spouse, it’ll be easier to do them with your kids. Practice these things, you can do them, you can do them. And I suggest you write these things down. Deep breath in, slower breath out, that’s number one. Have that mantra, Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing. And I can do this through you. And number three, look for the most generous interpretation, find it, even if you have to do it after the situation, find it and do it inside. Even if you never mentioned that MGI to them, do it on the inside. Well, I am just thrilled again, that you are listening, that you are seeking to love your spouse, and everyone else in your life well and better. And let’s pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, Lord, you strengthen us, we can do all things. We can be in prison and still say rejoice in the Lord always again, I say rejoice through you who strengthens us. That is true strength. That is true strength. God, I pray, Lord, that you want us to grow in our grace and our capacity to love others well, in our capacity to have true deep character. You want us to grow in these ways God give us grace to practice in traffic practice, when we get frustrated with the kids practice with our spouse, and how all of these things matter in eternity. And it’ll matter in other ways. In other seasons of our lives, that we need those muscles strong, because we’ll be tested, will be tempted, will be tried in bigger ways. And you want us to be mature you want us to grow. So thank you for your love, your kindness, your leadership, the way you grow us. And we just are so grateful.
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In Jesus name, amen. Well, I hope you’re as excited about these tools as I am, I can’t wait to practice them. I hope that you will practice them. And we’d love to have you on the inside to journey this road with you to love your spouse well and witnessed God do incredible miracles in your life. So if you’re interested in that you want on the inside, go to delight your marriage.com/cc and sign up with a clarity call. Share your story, have a listening ear people have even reached back out to us months after they’ve had their clarity call. And they for whatever reason were not able to join the program or it wasn’t the right fit for any reason. And they’ve actually shared how important that clarity call was for their journey and how God has shifted things for them. So it’s awesome no matter what and we’d love to have you on. God bless you have a wonderful, wonderful day.