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If your marriage is still plagued by your past mistakes — she brings up what happened 20 years ago… or he brings up how you used to be all the time…
What can you do to heal it?
How can you two move forward and actually build a better marriage?
I would like you to remember some important scriptures on this topic:
It is His kindness that leads us to repentance.
He disciplines those He loves.
Whoever heeds discipline shows the ways to life. (And many other Proverbs like it.)
And then this is the one that’s super practical:
“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.
First, go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” (Mt 5:23)
How do you reconcile?
Apologize. In a very effective way.
How do you make your apologies effective?
That is what I want to walk through with you on this episode.
I want you to have all of the know-how to get out there and do the scary, excruciating but necessary thing of owning your side and apologizing for it.
Is it 100% your fault? I bet not.
But, there is always an opportunity for us to own our side and for the purposes of getting right before God — go and repair with your spouse.
I hope this helps and gives you the encouragement you need to do the right thing.
Blessings,
Belah
PS — We’d love to support you in your marriage — feel free to get on a Clarity Call with a Clarity Advisor to see how we can help transform your ho-hum marriage to one that’s warm and inviting!
A recent grad wrote:
“I’m not exaggerating, I’m keeping it real…this is what I would tell anyone who asked…
I had been praying intensely for my marriage daily for 8 months… I had very limited improvements until starting the program.
The [Clarity] Advisor was warm and friendly and could empathize with my situation.
This program helped me stop doing the things that were undermining my efforts to improve my marriage.
I have spent much more money trying to rekindle my marriage with no results.
This might possibly be the best investment of my life.”
We’d love to have you see this kind of transformation! delightyourmarriage.com/cc
Transcript
0:02
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 your marriage. Hello, this is Bella, I’m grateful that you clicked on this episode. And, yeah, let’s get started on this really important healing, scary, difficult excuse excruciating, humiliating practice of apologizing. Now if you are at a place that you want your marriage to get better. And you know, there’s been tough stuff in the past, which I think all of us is it are in that category. So I am as well, this is an episode for you. Now, before we dive in, I do want to invite you and remind you that if you have listened to me for a while, you’ve heard our guests, you’ve been amazed by what God has done. I am also amazed at what God has done. I mean, he just keeps doing it. It’s awesome. And if you want to know more, we’d love to have you on a clarity call to see if you’d be the right fit for us to actually help you and walk alongside you and, and give you the tools that you need and the encouragement and the accountability and the support and the community and all of those things, extra coaching, tailored advice, we’d love to see if we can help you in your specific marriage. So to do that, you can get on a clarity call with a clarity advisor who is trained to listen and to empathize, because they themselves have been in your shoes. They themselves went through a program and witnessed transformation in their own lives and hearts and marriages. And so you can do that by going to delight your marriage.com/cec, you schedule a call, and you’ll have an intake form. And that just gives us the opportunity to prepare and then get on a call with like I said somebody who cares, who really cares about what’s going on for you, and see if we’re the right fit to help. I’m so excited to dive into today’s conversation. So I’ve made mistakes in my marriage. And I’m guessing you have to because that’s what living this life is. And I just have to tell you, it is hard to work really hard at trying to fix your marriage and not be seeing the fruits. And that’s that’s a really tough thing. I want to invite you to consider that there is something that has to be done. Well, I would say it this way, that there are things that need to be done in order so that you’re able to heal the marriage. I mean, and that’s that’s what the women’s program. That’s what the men’s program is all about doing the right things in order because you might be doing the right things that you’ve read on all the books and the podcast and all this stuff. But you’re doing some things that undermine it all or you haven’t done some things in order, so that the other things make sense. So apologizing is basically in that category. If you’ve never apologized to your wife about the things that have happened that have hurt her that now you know we’re wrong. If you’ve never apologized for them, you’re basically still stepping on the glass that’s still in your foot every time. You guys are walking around together, they’re still glass in the foot. But if you can open that up in a vulnerable, scary conversation and directly apologize for it. Look deep into their eyes. cry about it. I mean, really get serious about the pain you cause your spouse, whether you’re a husband or a wife, if you have felt that conviction. It’s very true that when the Bible says and it’s Jesus who says it in Matthew 525
4:51
Well, let’s actually start at 521 when it says you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, You shall not murder and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister Raka, which apparently is an Aramaic term of contempt, Raka is answerable to the court. And anyone who says You fool, will be in danger of the fire of hell. Verse 23, like, first of all, if that is not enough to get us a little scared, right, the fear of the Lord in us. That’s an important quality of who God is, he is holy. He is holy. Repentance is huge. Repentance is huge. So verse 23. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there, remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, and first, go and be reconciled to them. And then come and offer your gift. settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court, do it while you’re still together on the way or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer and you may be thrown into prison. Truly, I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. The thing that is super relevant to marriage, I think, is talking about anger, and talking about saying something, some expletive or something in contempt of your spouse, and then going to church and worshiping and thinking that there’s no problem. Nothing needs to be done. That’s just fine. I can spend my time with Jesus and be disrespectful to my husband, I can spend my time with Jesus and be mean to my wife that No. Nope. Jesus says before you even go to offer your gift, before you go to worship, you need to make things right. You need to settle those matters. leave your gift there in front of the altar. And first go and be reconciled to them. And then come and offer your gift. So sometimes we have a big fight with our spouse, and then go to church and think it’s okay. Or we’re rushing in the car angry at each other, say things we regret. And then think like all as well because I worshiped. And that’s just not the way God rolls. He cares about your spouse, he designed your spouse, and when your spouse says they are hurt, or they’ve communicated in in different ways. Maybe not the right ways, maybe ways that have felt accusatory and condemning towards you and been hurtful to you and the ways that they’ve communicated their hurt. But you know what? We all have a piece to play in every situation. And it’s our opportunity to go and be reconciled and apologize and say, dang it. I was wrong. I’m sorry, I made you feel that way. Sorry. I said those things. And really go there. And I know it’s hard. I’m not saying this is easy, it is excruciating. But if we don’t own our side of it, we don’t have a hope for healing. Things are again, this this glass on the foot is affecting you. Now. You may think yeah, my spouse brings up that I did something wrong 20 years ago, and she brings it up many, many, many times over. And that is hard. I’ll just say that. Because I bet you’re here trying to do the right things now. And you’re just like, but she just won’t let it go. She just won’t let it go. And here’s what I would recommend. I would recommend that you bring it up.
9:34
You’re thinking oh my gosh, we finally have a peaceful moment and I’m going to bring up the bad thing. Well, yeah. Because if it’s still plaguing her, which means that’s why she’s bringing it up over and over. Then the truth of the matter is, it’s not going to just go away, because you apologize when she accuses you of it It’s not, it’s your opportunity to bring it up
10:05
and write that wrong.
10:08
I know it’s really hard. I know it’s really hard, especially since you’ve been doing the right thing for for maybe 10 years and, and that bad thing was 20 years ago. It’s really hard. But unless you are the one that takes that step of initiative to bring it up, even if you say the right things when she brings it up, it’s just different. It’s just so different. If you think about somebody who has wronged you in the past, and let’s say you reached out to them, and you brought it up. And let’s say they responded, Well, and they apologized. That would have been cool. I’m sure like, that’s awesome. But man, it would have been different if they reached out to you, and brought it up and said they were wrong. And they apologize. I mean, that’s night and day different, isn’t it? Night and day. I mean, the way that we approach an apology is very different. And you’ll see in the Scripture, Jesus tells us, we’ve got to be proactive. If we just remember that someone has something against us, we need to go and reconcile it. It’s not, if somebody brings up an issue to us, we need to know we need to go and get it fixed. And so if you know there’s something major that happened in your marriage, or even minor things, that maybe through listening to me, you realized, Oh, I made some mistakes. This is huge. This is huge. You need to bring it up, and be okay that you guys might have a week of sad feelings towards each other because you’re bringing up some pain from the past, but you cannot get past it. If you don’t kind of have that surgery and get the glass out. And so you bring it up, and I’ll just kind of give you a script here. Honey, do you have a moment to talk about something? This is kind of hard, is now the time? I just been thinking, let’s say assuming they say yes, right? I’ve been thinking about
12:40
what happened 10 years ago with that situation. Or I’ve been thinking about what happened two months ago with that situation. Or last week with that situation. And I just I want you to know that I’m really sorry.
13:03
I’m really sorry that I that I hurt you that way. And I bet you must have felt alone. You must have felt betrayed. You must have felt rejected. You must have felt like I could care less about you.
13:21
Like Share what you think that person feels? You don’t know. But maybe because that that proves that you’ve been thinking about it. That you’re empathizing with their feelings. And then from there, you say, I just want you to know I take full responsibility of my part in this. I’m sorry, I hurt you. I’m sorry, I treated you that way. I’m sorry that I ignored the parts of you that are so important. Now, I don’t want to hurt you anymore in this way. I want to do this better. I love you. I promise I’m going to work on this. Is there anything you want to share? And listen reflectively listen to them when they share more of their feelings. Maybe it’s hard to hear. Don’t get defensive. Just listen. Just listen to it. They just need to share the feelings around it.
14:32
You could say I hear you. I hear you honey, I hear you.
14:39
I’m sorry I made you feel those things. I want you to be able to trust me then it’ll take time. But I want you to be able to trust me.
14:52
Will you forgive me?
14:55
And I would invite you to ask for forgiveness because you know What, that’s a choice that your spouse can make. And she or he might not be able to make it immediately. But it is something that they need to process and get to a spot of forgiveness. That’s the goal for them to forgive and let go. And so this doesn’t continue to be this wedge between you that they will release the glass and the foot, right?
15:25
Will you forgive me?
15:28
I don’t want this to keep us apart any longer.
15:31
Will you forgive me.
15:36
So I just want to encourage you, this is an easy, that’s kind of a script, you can go back and you can write out if I were to give you the template, I would say, Hey, honey, I’ve been thinking about something is now a good time to chat. That’s the first part you need to get her or his approval of that if they’re an emotional state that they can do that if they’re in an energetic state, if they’re okay to do that. That’s the first piece. The second piece is you bring up the situation. You bring up the situation, and then you say how it must have felt for them, and see what you can do to find those feelings, how it must have felt for them. And then you ask if there’s anything else, if there’s anything else that they felt around it. If there’s anything else they want you to know. And then you say I’m sorry, for your part in it be really clear, I’m sorry, I hurt you in these ways. I’m sorry, I did these things. I want you to trust me again.
16:49
And then finally, will you forgive me? Will you forgive me?
16:59
I hope this gives you some framework in how to move forward in this because again, you just can’t have this pain in the past and ignore it. You know, maybe your spouse is magnanimous enough to say, You know what, I’m going to let it go and move forward because my spouse was no longer doing those things. That would be great. But even if your spouse is that magnanimous, they still deserve apologies. My husband still deserves apologies, I still deserve apologies. Like that’s just called being a human messing up, and then owning our side and coming back and asking for forgiveness. I’m still making mistakes. You know, I was meditating on the verse in Proverbs this morning that says Whoever heeds discipline shows the way of life. But whoever ignores correction leads others astray. Whoever ignores correction leads others astray. So God willing, I myself, and getting corrected, and listening to God and listening to others who love me and are willing to tell me the truth, including my husband, and including others. And because I don’t want to lead anyone astray, my gosh, what a what a scary thought. What a scary thought. So I want to just invite you to heed this discipline, right? What is discipline is discipling. It’s being a disciple of Jesus, wanting to grow wanting to he’d discipline that shows the way of life. I didn’t read that. I didn’t write down the Scripture reference. Let me find it for you. Okay, it was proverbs 1017. Yeah, I just I just encourage you, that you can heed discipline. You know, you don’t want if you if you’ve got kids, you don’t want to lead your kids stray. You don’t want to lead your wife astray. If you’re the husband, you don’t want to lead your husband, astray if you’re the wife who doesn’t, you know, leading in a lot of ways is just who do you influence and if your wife you’re influencing your husband, towards or away from Jesus, that’s just the way we are in life where we’re either attracting people towards Jesus or away from him. And my goal and my heart cry is to attract people towards him. And that means apologizes when I make mistakes, not if it’s when even though it’s excruciating. And we can just accept that. That means we’re we’re heating instruction that means we’re growing. But you know, I, I like the idea of if you’re familiar with some people that talk about vulnerability, like Brene, brown, and some others that are really Leaders in the, you know, just talking about vulnerability and shame. Now, shame is a horrific feeling I’ve got to tell you, I mean, it really is, it’s, it’s just one of the most difficult feelings. And and so you can help somebody, if they’re sharing their shameful feelings with you, you can help them by saying, Hey,
20:24
I get it. I know that feeling. I’ve been there.
20:29
But I would invite you to also recognize that there are this, this is also a feeling that can serve you. Even though in the moment it is, so it’s just awful in the moment. But if we can just trust God in that moment that it that this is going to pass, the shame is going to pass. And eventually, you’ll get to a spot of where did that shame come from? What what is it that what was the source? And from there, God can help you discern what your part is in it? Is there a piece that needs to be corrected, or rectified? Do you need to go back and apologize for certain things? You know, I try to keep my conscience clear and apologize to everyone that I have wronged. You know, pretty, pretty quickly when I realize it when I remember it. But now as I’m talking, I remember somebody that I need to reach out to. And that’s just, that’s just the way we should live as Christians, we’re not perfect. We’re really seeking to love God, we’re really seeking to do His will His way. His timing to not rush. I know you’re doing your best. That’s why you’re here. You want to follow God and always you want to love Him fully, and you want to love his people well, but you’re not doing it perfect. You’re not doing it perfectly, and neither am I. And so what do we do, we need to go back and repair. We need to go back and repair. And that includes your spouse. They need that from you. Just like your wife needs a hug. Just like your husband needs. Intimacy, physical, wholehearted intimacy, right, just like your wife needs, the the deep conversations where you look into her eyes, and you ask questions about how she’s feeling and how she is. And you’re engaged. And you, you clarify how much you cared by your actions and your words, she needs those things. And apologies for the past help heal. So then you’re actually starting on even footing now. You can do this, you can do this. And you know what I would invite you to have some friends. If this is like a major thing. And this is really like just so scary to think about, I would encourage you to get a friend that you can share, hey, I’m gonna approach this with my wife, I’m gonna approach this with my spouse I’m concerned, this is gonna be really hard for me. And you can just maybe let them listen to this episode and say, Hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go for it. I know it’s worth it. I know, I need my marriage healed in these ways. I’m going to do it. And then they can support you. And you can say, hey, high five. I did it. It was scary, but I did it. Or I’m doing it tomorrow. Can you pray for me? Whatever it is, you need the support. That’s one of the reasons I love our programs is because these people become I mean a brotherhood, or a sisterhood where you can share the hardest things. And what’s more important than your highest priority human assignment, your spouse after that is your kids after that is everyone else. So if you’re reminded of something, leave your gift at the altar, and go take care of it. Go repair it.
24:33
Be humble.
24:35
Be courageous. Decide you’re not going to allow your insecurity to hold you back. You’re going to have courage and you’re going to go for it. I know you can hear you are listening. You are a courageous man. Take courage. You are courageous woman. Take courage. This is important You can do this, this can heal your marriage, own your side, on your side, bring it up
25:13
in a heartfelt way.
25:18
And just know that I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of you for doing it. I’m so proud of you, here you are. You’re doing your best. You’re not giving up on this marriage, I am proud of you. When you feel that warm wash of shame that, honestly is a terrible feeling. But look at you standing up and saying, Hey, thank God because this shows me that I have something to fix.
25:46
I have something that needs to be done here. You can do this.
25:51
Let me pray for you. Father, I trust you in this conversation that you’re the one that comforts you’re also the one that guides and leads and disciplines us disciples us because you love us. So Lord, I just asked for that great for this individual, that You would help them to see that you want what’s best for them. You want what’s best for them, God give them the grace to see it. Give them the grace, to make the hard choice, not just consume this material, not just consume it, but actually do it today, when they have the courage when they have the inspiration to do it. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you, thank you for joining me, I love you, we would love to help you. Either you have you know, if you have a great marriage, you just want it to be passionate. If you have a good marriage, you’re like this intimacy piece has been missing. If you feel you’re a wife and you want to want to make love to your spouse or you, you want your communication better. Listen, we have an opportunity to transform marriages by God’s grace. So I’d love to invite you to go to a clarity call. And this is also for people who are really really struggling with their marriages and we’ll help you. We’ll listen to your story and see if we can help you so go to delete your marriage.com/cc. schedule that as soon as you can. And then otherwise, God bless you go take the action step. If you’ve discerned something, go back and apologize for it. Today. You can do this, you can do this. Alright, God bless you. We’ll talk next week.