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Jesus Was Kind, but He Didn’t Care. Until…
Ben planned a date night by the pool. Charcuterie board, music, the whole thing.
And that night his wife told him: “If you don’t change, I’m leaving.”
Married 24 years. Four kids. A business owner who casts limestone mantles and is in his shop by 5:15 every morning. A man’s man. On one of his first calls he told me, (amongst explitives) “I’ve never even apologized in my life… I don’t know how to do this.”
But Ben looked around and believed, his kids are worth it. His family’s worth it. God is worth it.
This week he’s on the podcast, and he said something I hope husbands stop and think about:
“She just wants me to be kind, and I’m like, ‘You know what? For me to be kind, I have to care.’ And for most of my life, I didn’t care… And that’s not a loving Savior.”
Ben’s view of God shifted from a harsh God who is just there to discipline and not much else, to Jesus, who is kind. And then his marriage started to change.
Christian marriage transformation became real for Ben when his wife told him something had to change.
In this episode you’ll hear:
How a hard childhood taught him to shut down and walk away
Why he finally understood what she meant by “You don’t make me feel safe” and how that blocked everything
Why he went through the program twice, and what finally broke through
His blunt advice for the man who’s where he was
Today? They’re 180 degree different and they’re completely different, because of his transformation.
Husband, you’re the leader. When you change, everything in your marriage and family changes.
If you’re thinking, “Belah, I don’t need the episode. I need the coaching,” we’d love to help. delightyourmarriage.com/cc
At DYM we coach husbands and wives to transform their marriage even if only one does the work, but we encourage the husbands to go first.
Blessings,
Belah
PS – Want more insight into the health of your marriage? Take our free Marital Health Assessment to find out your Marital Health score.
PPS – Ready to start your healing journey? Schedule a free Clarity Call and see if our programs are the right fit for you.
PPPS – Here is what (another) recent Coaching Graduate had to say: [before coaching], “I felt like I was living a lie, didn’t like my husband yet I didn’t really believe in divorce and didn’t want the consequences of how that would affect our family. I suffer from abandonment issues and felt like I was abandoned especially in my marriage. I had Extreme Loneliness, felt unfulfilled, disappointment, resentment, always questioning God “why would you choose this for me” , “why cant you just fix this.” [after coaching], “I never saw myself as a controlling nag, I just saw myself with the unlucky draw of a husband who thought only of himself. Now I feel like I won the lottery.”
Here is an AI-generated summary of today’s episode:
Jesus Was Kind But He Didn’t Care. Until…
His wife gave him a deadline: change, or she’s done. Ben, married 24 years, father of four, and business owner, had never apologized in his life. He was quick to anger, closed off, and in his words, “always right.” But he refused to lose his family. In this episode Belah talks with Ben, a recent DYM graduate, about his hilariously honest journey: secretly funding the program, facing a childhood that taught him to shut down, going through the program twice, and discovering that Jesus is kind. Today he and his wife are 180 degrees different.
“If You Don’t Change, I’m Leaving”
Ben planned a date night by the pool, and his wife told him that if he didn’t change, she was leaving. “It was kind of like a wake-up call.” The next day at a graduation barbecue, his friend and former accountability partner told him about DYM: “Her name’s Belah. She’s really cool, and she knows men.”
Ben trusted him because his friend is the kind of man who takes a month to research a dishwasher. He had listened to the podcast for months before signing up himself. “I felt like it was my first chance and my last chance.”
The Secret Cash Job
Ben’s wife does the books for the business and the household, so he took a cash job to fund coaching without her knowing. “It’s kind of like Christmas presents. It’s a secret, but it’s a good surprise.” The twist: she knew the whole time. She had seen a text from his friend asking how the marriage class was going, and she had quietly listened to nearly every DYM podcast episode.
Saying Too Much of the Wrong Thing
“I say way too much that I shouldn’t be saying, and I withhold the things I should be saying.” Using the DYM Openness vs. Marital Health framework, Belah explains why being a 10 out of 10 in openness about complaints, frustrations, and hurts drags a marriage down, while being open about what’s good about your spouse builds it up.
Where the Walls Came From
Ben’s dad left and was never emotionally present. His mom’s side had a lot of alcoholism. He stuttered badly, kids made fun of him, and he got into fights starting in first grade. “I just really closed myself off, and I didn’t want to do anything emotional… if it didn’t involve anger.” In his marriage, that looked like “we’ll talk about it later,” and later never came. His wife told him they argued every two or three days, and the longest they’d ever gone without a fight was two weeks.
The Thermostat and the Thermometer
After his clarity call, Ben became convinced: “I’m acting poorly. She’s just reacting poorly. And if I would just act correctly, I feel like she would act correctly.” He had known the man is the thermostat and the woman is the thermometer for years. “I know what I’m supposed to do, I just don’t know how to do it.” What he valued most was the order of the program: “You don’t go out and do week 12.”
Tears on Church Security Duty
Ben was volunteering on church security when the final song came on and he couldn’t stop crying. “I just felt like I got this big bag of manure off my back. I could see colors… I could hear things.”
“She just wants me to be kind, and I’m like, ‘You know what? For me to be kind, I have to care.’ And for most of my life, I didn’t care… And that’s not a loving Savior.”
Listening to Her Breathe
Ben used to wake up anxious every morning and head straight to his shop by 5:15 without talking to God. Twenty years ago he got angry when his wife woke him to feed the baby. But recently, after she woke him in the night because of her hip pain, he lay there listening to her breathe, with no rush to get to work.
“I kept thinking about how cute she must have been as a little girl.” He realized the hard thing was never the work. “The hard things were telling my wife what’s going on with me.” And he finally understood what she meant by “You don’t make me feel safe.” “I didn’t get it. But I get it now.”
“More Time in the Cooker”
At his first graduation, Belah told Ben he needed more time. He committed on the spot, prayed for another cash job, and was offered one the next day. By Monday he was starting the program over. “I was doing all the bookwork… but I never had any breakthroughs. I needed more time marinating. I needed more tenderizing.”
Hearing things again and again, like “Jesus was never harsh with women,” let the Holy Spirit convict him more deeply each time. “I gotta get to safe first. This is first base.”
The First Apology
Ben’s first SHORE apology was the first real apology of his life, and his wife responded with five more things. He was crushed until a guy in his group said, “Hey man, she just gave you the answers to the test.” Small apologies became baby steps forward.
Filthy Rags
On his marriage assessment, Ben scored himself a 4 out of 10 and later realized his wife would have said 0 or 1. He saw himself in the other men on the calls, even one he had privately called an idiot, until he caught himself doing the exact same thing. “The program’s hard on me, but it’s empowering me to do the right thing.” He compares his arrogance and self-righteousness to filthy rags. “I can’t be looking at things the way I think they work. I got to look at them the way God designed them to work.”
Ben’s Advice for Men
Do your SHORE apologies
Do your CIRQUE listening
Do your morning gratitudes, even for a wife you’re struggling with, and pray for her
“Just freaking do the class.” Even if you’re a 7 or an 8, you need tools.
“Get in the gym. Let Coach Belah tune you up.”
Resources Mentioned
Unoffendable by Brant Hansen (Ben has listened to it seven times)
DYM Openness vs. Marital Health framework
SHORE Apologies and CIRQUE Listening
Things can change, even when she says, “That’s it, I’m done.” If you’re ready for what Ben has now, we’d love to walk with you. Book a clarity call and let’s talk.
Christian Marriage Transformation Starts With Changing Yourself
Schedule Your Free Clarity Call
(Ai helped us summarize the content of the podcast.)
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