Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Gary Bauer: Welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dobson Policy and Culture Center. I'm also the host of the Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom podcast.

Our nation was founded 250 years ago, and there is going to be a lot of celebrations about that this year. All during that time, the family—marriage between a man and a woman—has been the institution which has held our great nation together. The foundation of successful families, as I think most of us know, are marriages based on the Bible, biblical marriage.

Since the beginning of time, it was God's plan for a man to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Even secular societies recognize the value of families and marriage. But I'm sorry to say—and I think we all know this—here in America, the family and marriage have been under a lot of pressure in recent years.

Dr. James Dobson devoted a good bit of his life and ministry to trying to battle back against some of the cultural and legal pressures on marriage. Sadly, even many Christian marriages often wind up in one of two categories, neither of which are good. The worst one, of course, is heading for divorce. None of us want that. But the second one, surviving but not thriving, I don't think that's anybody's idea of marriage either.

But there is good news about helping people, particularly people of faith, rediscover the biblical principles that can help move our marriages out of divorce court and out of just survival mode. Our guests today here on Family Talk are going to help us discover not only what those principles are, but they're going to help us learn how to use those principles.

When Brad and Marilyn Rhodes met in 1995, I'm told it was love at first sight, although I think that only applies to Brad. We'll get both sides of the story as we get into this. Brad completed his undergraduate studies at Furman University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He then went on to graduate from law school at the University of Kentucky, my home state. From there, he launched a successful career as an attorney, practicing law for a couple of decades.

Marilyn had earned her degrees in psychology and social work. Counseling was her passion. And if you look at that, they had good education and they both were men and women of faith. You would think that their marriage would automatically blossom. So you can imagine their surprise when they approached their first wedding anniversary and had to come to grips with the reality that their marriage looked like it was on the wrong track.

Obviously, Brad and Marilyn recovered from that first rocky year of matrimony, and they've gone on to establish a powerful marriage ministry which is benefiting thousands of couples nationwide. They've written a book about their experiences, which was named Book of the Year by Christianity Today in 2024. The book is called *The Grace Marriage*. So let's get right into it. Brad and Marilyn, welcome back to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Let me just say as we get started, if Dr. Dobson was not with our Father in heaven and was still on planet Earth, he would want to be doing this interview because this was something that drove a good bit of his life. He was well aware of your work and very proud of it and impressed by it. So he's not here, but I know he's watching. You guys, welcome back to Family Talk.

Brad Rhodes: It's a privilege to be here. Thank you for having us.

Gary Bauer: So let's begin as I mentioned a little earlier. How did you guys meet? Was it love at first sight for both of you or just you, Brad?

Brad Rhodes: Well, it was love at first sight more for me than Marilyn. If you looked at both of us, you'd understand why. I made a commitment I wouldn't date for a year. And then when I first saw Marilyn eight months later, I was married. I couldn't believe she existed, much less that she was interested in me. I still feel that way, but I knew pretty quickly that Marilyn was super special. The longer I'm married to her, the more I realize that's the case.

Gary Bauer: Do you go in with that description of how things went, Marilyn?

Marilyn Rhodes: It was not quite love at first sight for me, but it was quick. Obviously, we were married eight months later. We even went to a Chuck Swindoll conference that I bought for us prior to marriage. I thought this will be good for us. We went to this conference and we thought, "This is great. They have this for couples that need it, but we're not going to have these issues."

And we just checked out of the conference. We still laugh about that because the minute we got married, the conflict started. When you have two selfish people that come to marriage with selfish motives, it sets you up to crash. I think the world paints a picture that pushes us in that direction, thinking that marriage is going to do something for us, rather than this being an institution God created for His glory. It works when we're both dying to self rather than being selfish.

Gary Bauer: So you both grew up in Christian homes, I'm assuming. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? I think it's fair to say you didn't enter marriage with any anxiety about success because as you indicated, you felt like you pretty well had things under control. But tell us a little bit about your home lives before you found each other.

Marilyn Rhodes: We both grew up in Christian homes and would both say that we love the Lord, but we were just living selfishly. Even in a Christian home, the world speaks so loud to us and we bring that to the table. Would you agree with that, Brad?

Brad Rhodes: It just seemed like we both made each other's lives so much better. So we went into marriage thinking, "Marilyn's such a big add for my life," and Marilyn's like, "Brad's such a big add for my life." We kind of expected everything to go better because we're married. Whenever you go into something with a motive to make things better for you, it always breaks down.

Whoever finds his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will gain eternal life. I think we just had such strong emotion. We just felt marriage would go well. Nobody had really told us you actually have to invest in marriage, you have to block off time for marriage, you have to be creative with this, you have to say no to other things. Nobody taught us how to do marriage.

We had no clue. We just thought it would work because we had something so special. Ten out of ten couples find out that's wrong. That's why we feel committed to helping people take an investment growth mentality in marriage where you intentionally grow the thing as opposed to unintentionally allow it to drift.

Gary Bauer: In that first year, I remember my first year with my wife, Carol. We actually had a pretty good argument driving on our way to our honeymoon. It was over directions, if you can imagine. I was kind of shocked at the time how quickly it was a really unpleasant conversation, and I thought, "Whoa." But people argue, they make up. Did you sense right from the beginning that something was off track?

Brad Rhodes: I don't mean to top a tale, but we had our first argument at our wedding reception. So we were arguing before we got to the car because I got impatient and was rude to our photographer. Marilyn was bothered that I was rude to the photographer because the photographer's a family friend. So we tried to make sure we broke in the marital fight early.

Marilyn Rhodes: And Brad is an attorney and he's gifted with words, so arguing for him is like breathing. He can poke holes in something. Arguing, we both came from very different families of origin and had very different expectations of marriage. I had lots of expectations of how incredible it was going to be, and Brad had very few expectations other than we're just going to coexist and come together physically and just love each other well, and it'll be great without trying.

The world tells us that if your marriage isn't okay, something's wrong. It should be okay without any work. Every other part of life takes work and we know that: talents, our jobs, children. But if it's not naturally good between a couple, then this must be a terrible thing.

Gary Bauer: I know you both take mutual responsibility for whatever was going off the tracks, but Marilyn, is it true that you actually said to Brad that he was great at dating but not so great at marriage?

Marilyn Rhodes: Yes, I said, "You are great at dating, but you're terrible at being married." He just treated me like a roommate. I thought we'd get up and have coffee together in the morning and talk, and Brad would wake up just in time to make it to the office. He loved sports. I didn't grow up in a sports home, and everything revolved around sports.

So we're in a new city, and I just felt he started a law practice and was really focused on sports in his free time. I didn't feel any focus was on me, and so I cried weekly, a couple times a week. We would have a big argument and it was just about a year in. I was just pondering with the Lord, "Am I sentenced to a life of this? This is miserable. I'm alone. I feel lonely."

And that's when the Lord broke my heart to my selfishness. I had put Brad in the place of God. God really showed me, "I'm your hope, not him. I'm the perfect Prince Charming, not your imperfect husband and my imperfections that I bring." So I went to Brad and I apologized, and I said, "I have been so focused on you rather than focused on how the Lord is calling me to love you in marriage. Will you forgive me? I don't want to be on this rollercoaster and I'm just going to look at where I'm called to be obedient." And that was a turning point in our marriage.

Gary Bauer: You both know this, but today there's a lot of people who do not get married in the church. And that's fine. We're all in different places in our faith journey. But if you don't get married in church, it's easy to forget that there are three parties in the marriage. The man and woman are pledging their love and devotion to each other, but they're doing that in the presence of God, and God is blessing. You're asking for His blessing in that marriage. Now, as you both found, that doesn't guarantee the outcome. But if you go into the marriage and you're not even thinking that God is a major part of it, that's tough to get the kind of start we all would want at the very beginning.

Brad Rhodes: If we're not relying on God for sustenance, God for satisfaction, and God for joy, and we're relying from another individual for that, that's going to break down. If my hope is Marilyn and Marilyn making me feel special, making me feel respected, making me feel loved, making me feel like something, that's wrong. It puts too much pressure on Marilyn. Marilyn can't do it, and it's going to break down our relationship.

Two people fully satisfied in Christ, laying down their lives for one another, that's the plan. And that's the only plan that works. What happened was we were looking for things from each other that were called only to be filled in God and give to others, not be filled in one another and not think about God.

Gary Bauer: And as Marilyn mentioned, Brad, you're at the beginning of your time together and you're trying to build a law practice. Men have this instinct of providing for the family. So Marilyn, you alluded to this with the fact that Brad would get up and instead of this very civilized breakfast conversation you imagined, he was off to the office to try to make the world safe and pursue his career. I think a lot of men particularly deal with that, Brad.

Brad Rhodes: It is true. And I was getting a lot of affirmation at work. At work, they thought I was doing great. My clients liked me. My staff liked me. The law practice was growing. I told Marilyn, I said, "Everybody likes me except you. What's your problem?" The reality is I was the problem and Marilyn's the only one that truly knew me.

I love what one guy said: "If the person that knows you the best likes you the least, you probably need to take a look in the mirror." And that's where I was. I think it was Keller that said if anything comes ahead of your marriage other than Jesus, your marriage will slowly die. The law practice was ahead of Marilyn. Sports were ahead of Marilyn. Other things were ahead of Marilyn. And as a result, our marriage was withering.

Gary Bauer: Marilyn, was there a particular spiritual moment in that first year that started directing you toward the realization that the problem wasn't necessarily Brad, but that both of you were looking at each other for fulfillment instead of relying on God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

Marilyn Rhodes: It absolutely was. I was alone with the Lord, and it's when I was asking Him, "Is this it? Am I sentenced to a life of this?" I naturally am a little more steady in my personality, and all of a sudden I had been on this rollercoaster of ups and downs based on what Brad was or wasn't doing. I didn't like who I'd become because I was crying on a regular basis. I was frustrated on a regular basis.

And so in that crying out to the Lord was when I felt really convicted of my part. And that's when I just really felt the Lord revealing to me, "I'm your hope, not Brad, and you're living selfishly, and you need to look to me and love him how I'm calling you." So that was about a year in, and I remember the moment when I was broken before the Lord for my part.

Gary Bauer: Do I recall that there was an exchange between you where you said to Brad, "Let's talk"? Brad, if that's true, those are the dreaded words that every husband doesn't want to hear. There's almost nothing good that follows "let's talk."

Brad Rhodes: It's true. I remember her telling me that, and our marriage went from really bad to stable. It wasn't—it didn't go from bad to great because I was still in the marriage and hadn't—the Lord later showed me my part, and that's when our marriage just really took off.

Gary Bauer: Was there a conference, Brad, that helped concentrate your mind on what needed to happen?

Brad Rhodes: There was. I had a very aggressive spiritual uncle whose life verse is probably "Wounds from a friend can be trusted." He kept trying to push me to go to this marriage—it was actually in the peak of Promise Keepers. He kept pushing me to go, and I said no. Finally, he made me go. He cleared my schedule at work, cleared my schedule at home, bought my ticket, invited my father-in-law, and then called me.

So I went not by choice, and God broke me. It may have been when I was saved. I mean, it really was. It was the first time my sin I saw in HD clear. I was broken in my sin and I was given the gift of repentance. I came home to Marilyn and said, "The only thing that's going to be different is everything. Don't believe me—I wouldn't—but in five years you'll know God changed your husband."

Gary Bauer: Marilyn, that must have been music to your ears. Were you skeptical at all, or did you could you see something and hear something in Brad's voice that made you feel like this is happening?

Marilyn Rhodes: Well, it was shocking because he got home really late at night, and I'm an early riser. He was one that used to just get up at the very last minute. It was before church, and I was outside planting flowers as soon as the sun came up, and he came outside and said, "Where do you want me to dig?"

I was like, "What in the world? He's outside early in the morning to help me plant flowers?" So it did really speak to my heart, but I was also careful in my optimism. But as he said, he said, "You're going to know that this is a change." And it was. It was a change. And the Lord just really worked on both of our hearts, and I'm so very thankful.

And then we then had our marriage in a proper posture. But like you said, it's three. We come to this with the Lord. So often we leave the Lord out of it. Once we both understood that He's at the center of this, it stabilized everything. It was still quite a while before we got grace. Once we understood, the Scriptures are so very instructive and specific in how they inform us. If we really study and pray for wisdom, our marriages, they are to be pictures of the gospel, and they can be beautiful. The Lord has just grown us year by year in that, and that's why we long to help others.

Gary Bauer: Now, how did you go from what obviously was almost a Road to Damascus experience with you both understanding why that first year had not met your expectations? How did you go from that and obviously healing your own marriage to beginning a ministry that sought to heal the marriages of others?

Brad Rhodes: It's interesting you ask. We loved being married, and we'd worked with youth for 10 years. Then one of the couples said, "Will you do our premarital instead of our pastor?" I said, "Why?" He said, "We want what you have. What you have looks fun." So we did that premarital. We did another premarital. We started a group. I don't know why God had given us favor with marriages, but He had.

We had about a two-year waiting list for a group. Then they ordained me lay pastor of marriage. Basically, "You're doing all the marriage stuff anyway, we'll just call you pastor." And then when I was ordained pastor of marriage, this is key. I realized we did premarital counseling and crisis counseling, but we had nothing for the marriage. I'm like, "What a dumb ministry strategy. We'll get you ready for it, and if you ever hate each other and want a divorce, we'll pour thousands of dollars in you and lose 85 percent of you." Crazy.

So I thought we have to have an ongoing strategy, discipling marriages. And then I realized with the Barna study, 72 percent of churches have no marriage ministry. Eighty percent of churches spend no substantive dollar on marriage. And I thought if the church is salt and light, and marriage has been in decline, and the church is silent in the space and doesn't even find it worthy of a ministry but's pouring six digits into children and youth and wondering why it's not working, every church needs a marriage ministry and it needs to be an ongoing marriage ministry.

Because the church is that important. So I felt a clear call from God to leave the law practice with the prayer and hope that God would start a movement that every single Bible-believing church would have an ongoing marriage ministry to disciple marriages. We wouldn't just leave people to their own devices and let them be conformed to the patterns of the world, but we would teach them how to do it well.

Because if the church had taught us how to do it well—"Hey, you got to date every week, you got to spend time together, you got to communicate, you got to prioritize this, you can't put other things above it"—it would have saved us a lot of trouble. But a lot of couples aren't as fortunate as we were to have people intersect in our lives to help change our direction. They end up in complacent marriages that are terrible or they end up divorced. And the church can stop, I think, 90 to 95 percent of it if they start shepherding and discipling. So that was our lifetime call is to help the church do marriage well.

Gary Bauer: Brad and Marilyn, this conversation's fantastic. I won't tell my wife, Carol—we've been married for over 50 years—but I'm even taking notes here. So I have a lot more I'd like to talk to you about, and I know our listeners would love to hear. Any chance you guys could come back for another day?

Marilyn Rhodes: We'd love to.

Brad Rhodes: We'd be honored.

Gary Bauer: Wonderful, wonderful.

Roger Marsh: When two people acknowledge that the problem isn't their spouse but their own selfishness, well, that's when real transformation in marriage can begin. You've been listening to a special edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, featuring Gary Bauer, our Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dobson Policy and Culture Center, and his practical conversation with Brad and Marilyn Rhodes about building marriages that don't just survive but truly thrive.

If you missed any portion of today's broadcast, or if you want to share it with a couple who could use some encouragement, visit JDFI.net. There you'll find the complete program along with information about Brad and Marilyn's award-winning book called *The Grace Marriage*. Again, you'll find the book information as well as the audio when you go to JDFI.net.

The conversation you heard today reflects the heart of what we do here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. Every day, marriages across America face pressures that can feel overwhelming. Cultural messages tell us that if marriage isn't easy, something must be wrong. Financial stress pulls couples in every different direction, and competing priorities crowd out the time needed to nurture intimacy.

But through broadcasts like the one you just heard, we are equipping husbands and wives with the tools they need to build marriages that reflect Christ's love for the church. Your partnership makes this possible for us to reach couples at every stage, from newlyweds discovering that marriage takes work to long-married partners seeking to reignite their connection.

When you support the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, you're investing in the foundational institution God designed to hold families and communities together. To make a secure donation, visit JDFI.net. You can also call a member of our constituent care team. That number is 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825.

Or keep in mind you can also send your donation through the U.S. Postal Service. Our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado, the zip code 80949. One more time, that is P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80949.

Well, I'm Roger Marsh. And from all of us here at Family Talk and the JDFI, thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to join us again next time for part two of this inspiring conversation featuring our own Gary Bauer and his guests Brad and Marilyn Rhodes, discussing building a grace marriage. That's coming up right here on the next edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you can still trust for the family you love.

This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.

Dr. James Dobson: Sometimes being a good parent requires the skills of a detective, decoding the messages behind your child's actions. Here's today's Dobson Minute with Dr. James Dobson.

For example, when a two-year-old screams and cries at bedtime, one must ascertain what he's communicating. If he is genuinely frightened by the blackness of his room, the appropriate response should be quite different than if he is merely protesting about having to go to bed.

Perhaps the toughest task in parenthood is to recognize the difference between these two distinct motives. That's why raising children is such a lofty skill that can never be reduced to a formula or a set of rules. Inevitably, it involves the ability to read the child like a book, feeling his passions and responding appropriately to his needs.

For more information on this topic, visit DobsonMinute.org.