Focus on the Family

Guest (Male): Your marriage can be healed. A Hope Restored marriage intensive from Focus on the Family can transform you and your spouse's relationship in just a few days.

Guest (Male): We'll go to this thing, but this is it. If this doesn't work, we're done.

Guest (Female): What we have now is way more than we ever had before and that I ever even dreamed of in the marriage.

Guest (Male): Discover more at hoperestored.com. That's hoperestored.com. The following program is sponsored by Focus on the Family and is supported by the prayers and financial gifts of wonderful friends like you.

John Fuller: This is John Fuller, and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Dave Willis: Ephesians 4:32 talks about being kind and compassionate to one another and then it uses a word that I love, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. And I think that tenderness in marriage is usually what we need to lean into when there's a pattern of offense. Like how can I, in my tone, in my words, in my pursuit of my spouse, in my thoughtfulness, just be tender with them? Not rough with them, but just tender with them.

John Fuller: That's Dave Willis and he joins us along with his wife Ashley on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for being here. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, you know it's good when you're learning things, and that's the whole goal for us here at Focus on the Family. Believe me, we learn right alongside you, the listener, the YouTube watcher. These are just good tidbits. Last time with Dave and Ashley, we learned some good things about just making some small corrections in attitude and how we speak to one another in our marriages. You can go back and listen to that by getting the app on your smartphone or just go to the website and you can listen to the program last time.

Today we're going to continue with this great book, *Do Marriage Better: Seven Simple Shifts for a Deeper Connection*. Who doesn't want that? I hope you have an appetite in your marriage to want to have a better marriage.

John Fuller: This is really good stuff. Stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast to get a copy or call us at 800-A-FAMILY.

Jim Daly: Dave and Ashley, welcome back.

Dave Willis: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Ashley Willis: It's good to be back.

Jim Daly: It's always fun. You guys always say hard things with smiles. So you're really a horrible husband, Jim. No, it's fair. You want to have that appetite and it's always good to have it with humor and that's what we're getting at.

One of the observations I have, we get a lot of letters and emails here at Focus on the Family from really broken marriages. It's so sad because they loved each other at one time and you're thinking if you could have fought through those things and done these little things that you're talking about, you could have such a better experience in this life and make your marriage something that even your children are going to go, "Wow, mom and dad have a great marriage." What a great goal rather than the alternative, like we're done, we don't like each other anymore, and then everything breaks from there.

That's one of the things we're fighting for every day because we see the stats. We know what the impact, particularly on children, when mom and dad split. It's not a good thing. So we fight for it every day along with the donors that support us here at Focus. Before we go back into the detail, let's do the recap. Give us the seven, Dave, those seven simple shifts just categorically. And then, Ashley, I'm going to throw it to you to say give us some help on healthy communication just to bring last time's program up to speed here. So you want to hit the seven for us?

Dave Willis: Yes, really, we just boiled it down to these main areas that every couple needs to get aligned with and every couple talks about these things: money, communication, sex, parenting, legacy, conflict. When you get on the same page with these things, it's going to move your marriage to a new level.

Jim Daly: And those are really the big things. I think most people listening, watching would say, "Yep, yep," they're ticking it off. That's one, that's two, that's three. Those are the three areas that we struggle with out of the seven. Maybe you're saying seven of the seven. Ashley, in that area of communication, we touched on it last time, just healthy communication starting with the best interests of your spouse in mind. What does that look like?

Ashley Willis: We talked about how coming to your spouse with curiosity and compassion instead of criticism is really key because it changes the words you say to them, but also the way that you come at them with your tone because tone is really important too.

Jim Daly: One of the main things we track all the folks in terms of topic, people that call us and schedule an appointment with our counseling department, and that's a great service that we have here. If you're struggling, we can provide a free consultation with certified state-licensed counselors and they'll help you think through the beginnings of getting help and what that might look like. Take advantage of that, call us if you need help in your marriage or in your parenting.

In that context, we track the themes and the things that are up there at the very top will be financial struggles and then typical physical intimacy is right up there as well. It's one of the big crushers in marriage and it doesn't need to be that way. But how do we get a healthier grasp on physical intimacy in marriage and make it the wedding present God intended it to be?

Dave Willis: And it is meant to be a gift. I think one place that we haven't done a great job as Christianity as a whole, the churches that most of us grew up in, was not celebrating the gift aspect of it. This is a gift, a gift to both spouses that God designed you both for pleasure and connection. And that when you're leaning into this gift, this intimate gift for a husband and a wife, it's not only physical pleasure, it's not only procreation, but mind, body, soul, you're creating and experiencing this beautiful oneness that God intended for you to have.

If you're denying yourself that or denying your spouse that consistently, then you're making your marriage weaker than it could be, less enjoyable than it could be. We try to be really delicate talking about this particular topic because there's so much nuance to it, especially depending on how people were raised, depending on past experience. We certainly are very, very sensitive to those who've had any type of abuse in their past and this thing that was meant to be a gift was somehow weaponized against them. That's tragic and terrible and so we want to not just give these blanket statements to make people that are really suffering and hurting because of past wounds feel like they're just not measuring up even more. But for all of us, we want to say just like the book says, this is an area that we can do better, we can experience in a better way. It doesn't have to be scary or intimidating and there are simple steps you can do to get there.

Jim Daly: And we're looking at Ashley. What are the simple steps, Ashley?

Ashley Willis: There are steps. Well, I think we first have to realize that physical intimacy is not going to look the same the duration of your marriage because we believe there are different seasons of intimacy. That's based on different circumstances and mindsets and everything in between. We like to say that there are four different seasons of intimacy and we use the letter B because we like alliteration. And these are not necessarily in sequential order, but we have what we refer to as the "Beach" season. Imagine like a beach chair.

Dave Willis: Because there's a chair that goes with each of these seasons. We do this as a talk at conferences and have these four chairs on stage.

Ashley Willis: Exactly. So you have your beach chair. It sounds good, right? Who doesn't love the beach, right? We often equate this season with the honeymoon season because it's when physical intimacy seems to be the easiest. We're having more of it, we're enjoying it, we feel like everything, you know.

Dave Willis: There are no real distractions. You've got nothing else to do when you're at the beach. There aren't other things to worry about.

Ashley Willis: That's right. You have less worries, everything seems to be working, firing on all cylinders, and there's not as many frustrations when it comes to physical intimacy. But if we stayed at the beach all the time, we'd be sunburned and chafed. So you can't stay there all the time, right?

Dave Willis: Right. Nobody lives all day in a beach chair. It's a nice season that you can keep coming back to in your marriage, but day-to-day life, nobody's intimate life looks like that all the time because there are seasons. So it's Beach, Busy, Babies, and Broken are the four seasons.

To give a quick rundown of the other three: the "Busy" season, which is a kitchen stool in our talks. It's practical. In our house, the kitchen stool is not a comfortable chair, but it's the most used chair in the house because of where it is. It's functional, it's practical, it's where kids will sit do some homework, grab a snack. That kind of represents the season of your marriage when you're running, there's always something to do. In intimacy, you're not going to have time probably to burn candles and put on romantic music and recite poetry to each other. It's going to be quicker, right?

Ashley Willis: You may schedule it.

Dave Willis: You may have to put it on the schedule which, for some people, doesn't seem romantic but it's super practical. We talk more about what that can look like in the book. So there's the Busy season, the "Babies" season, which is when you're trying to get pregnant or you are pregnant or you have young babies at home. It's represented by like a nursery rocker.

Intimacy is really different in that season, especially if you're going through infertility struggles where all of a sudden just the act itself can feel mentally like we're failing at this. It can create a wedge between husbands and wives. There are a lot of couples that we've counseled through the years with that struggle and we have so much sensitivity to them. If you've got young babies at home, man, it's hard. You're exhausted. And then just with God's sense of humor, he made this act the very way that children are created and then once children come, they try to make sure you never have it again. Like they just know they will beat on the door at the worst time.

Jim Daly: It's exhaustion, all of that. You know let me ask you, Ashley, because I think what's hard typically—and again, there's the couple listening that it's not the way they experience it and I get that, I don't want to be mindless about that—but typically, men are, we've got testosterone, this is an appetite. A lot of women don't want to hear that, like this is just there, it's present, we're thinking about it a lot.

In that context, our ability as men, as husbands, to notice the season and say, "Okay." I mean, how do we relax that and not turn that into a feud? One more thing that is going to be irritating to you as a wife or to the husband, but in that context, how do we go with the season? Season sounds like a long time when you're talking about physical intimacy which we're hoping for a more regular dose, to be quite honest. So how do we manage that or how would you recommend husbands manage that a little better?

Ashley Willis: I think being aware of it and being sensitive to it is half the battle. I do think that where a lot of couples have a lot of frustration in this area of intimacy is thinking the other just doesn't care. "She doesn't even care about my needs" or "He doesn't care about my needs" and then they both neither one do anything about it. They just are mad at each other and that is a libido killer right there.

The sensitivity from a husband really eases the wife. But I would also say this, because I remember those days being touched out, having small children, nursing, and just all the different things. It just doesn't build romance for a woman. So one thing a husband can do is help more than he thinks he needs to be helping. Because there's a lot of stuff that even if you are nursing your baby that only the mom can do, so husbands just pitch in as much as you can just to lift that load a little bit.

But I also think we need to pay attention, or husbands need to pay attention especially in this season, to the non-intimate affection they are giving their wife. Because in the counseling space, I hear all the time from wives, especially in this season, they say he only wants to touch me if he thinks it's leading elsewhere, like to full-on intimacy. And I feel like it's just meeting his needs and he doesn't care about me. And the husbands will say, "No, I do care. I just feel like she's touched out during the day." And so what it boils down to is wives need more of that non-intimate touch from their husband.

Dave Willis: Well, it's still intimate. It's just not leading to the bedroom where husbands you are touching your wife, showing affection without any agenda other than just wanting to show her affection. That will build her tank up.

For wives and husbands both, just to realize how differently we're wired on this. By God's design, we're wired differently and you have two completely different mindsets as it relates to intimacy. The husband's like, "I'm stressed, let's go to the bedroom." The wife's like, "I'm stressed, don't touch me." Neither of those is wrong because it's how God made us. But just understanding that difference can help both spouses really be able to serve each other, relate to each other, have patience and tenderness with each other, keep your sense of humor with each other. Instead of trying to change each other, like "you should be more like this" or "you should have more drive" or whatever, to take a step back and say, "How can I serve and love my spouse right where they are?"

And for both spouses to say whatever season we're in, how do we make it a priority in this season? Because you can't just say, "Well, we're just not going to do it for years." It needs to be regular. In every season, for the sake of your marriage, it really needs to be regular. What "regular" means, that number's going to look different in different seasons.

Jim Daly: Somebody's going, "Tell me the number! Tell me the number!"

Dave Willis: That's always the question. It's "figure it out." God has a sense of humor with this, you figure it out.

Jim Daly: Ashley, when you look at the book, again, *Seven Simple Shifts*, in this area, what was something that really connected with you emotionally as a wife and a woman? What made a difference for you to say, "Okay, I can relax in this area, I don't feel like I'm on roll call"? Was there something Dave did?

Dave Willis: How do you know that she's not the one all over me all the time, Jim? Like some days I feel like I'm just a piece of meat and I have emotional needs too!

Ashley Willis: We'll get to you in a minute, Dave.

Jim Daly: But I'm just thinking of that little breakthrough, which is really the theme of the book. What was something that really helped you to say, "Okay, this helps me better understand Dave"?

Ashley Willis: And this isn't just my story, I hear this from a lot of women. I know in that season of raising babies in particular, I would often look at physical intimacy as another thing on the list. A "to-do." As a "to-do," right. And I'm checking the boxes all day. And I knew that I needed to make a shift in that, that this is a gift, this isn't just checking the box.

A real breakthrough for us was there was one day where we talk about something called a "physical intimacy threshold," where you kind of agree on a number of days that you don't let this many days pass without at least talking about it, like when can we engage? So I knew we were coming up on that day for us and I mentioned it to Dave and I think he felt the tension from me. It wasn't that I didn't want to engage, I was just feeling pressure because it can feel like a pressure.

As the day went on, I was like, "We'll get to it," you know? I'm just communicating with him because communication is a huge part of having a thriving intimate life. Anyway, we get to the end of the day and Dave's like, "Listen, I want this to be a good experience for both of us and I'm not here just to check a box. I'm here because I want to connect with you. Not just being physically intimate, but just you. I just want to have a moment with you." That meant a lot to me because I think sometimes as women, we can just think like, "I've just got to keep up this pace of checking this box or he's going to be angry and he's going to have frustration." And I think when we just look at it like that, we're missing out on the gift. When I made that mindset shift, it really helped me to just know this is about connection. This isn't about checking a box. This is for both of us to connect in a special way that God gave us for marriage.

Jim Daly: This is really good because I think it's so helpful for couples. Getting from the old place to the new place. How do I do that? How do I go from just another thing on the to-do list and frustration to "gift," "enjoyable," "something good to do," and not resent it, if I could put it in that context? What's the spiritual magic in that regard and how do I get there if I'm more on the to-do side?

Ashley Willis: I'm glad you said spiritual because that is the key is you pray about it. You actually pray about your intimate life. And that is something we talk about quite a bit with couples and their eyes kind of go wide. "God wants to hear about that?" and it's like, "Yes, he created it for marriage. Why would you not pray about that?"

That's something especially in that season where we were a bit at odds with this, when I committed to praying about that and we prayed together about that, it really started to shift. And it wasn't overnight. These changes don't happen overnight. Changes are usually little by little.

Jim Daly: But it has to be mindful. All of this, even for the husband on the things we need to work on.

John Fuller: Dave and Ashley Willis are our guests today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and we're talking about some of the content in their terrific book *Do Marriage Better*. We have copies of that book here and we'll link over to it as well as our counseling team, which Jim mentioned earlier. The starting point is going to be focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

I so appreciate the tone and the approach that you're taking to this topic and, Dave, you were pretty vulnerable in the book about a season where that drive was just something that was gone for you. No doubt there are couples who are dealing with that, so I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that season, which I think you called the "Broken" chair.

Dave Willis: That's right, the "Broken" season, which is the fourth and the chair that is just broken. There are going to be times in your marriage where, for physical distance issues, physical health issues, emotional issues, trust issues, there will be brokenness in this part of the marriage that you need to tenderly work through together. We've experienced the Broken season a few times in our marriage already.

The first time was years ago when I had a struggle with pornography early in our marriage and just the intimate wound that that caused to Ashley. Working through that trust being rebuilt together was the first time we walked through it and we talk some about that in the book.

The second time we walked through the Broken season, it wasn't because of a trust issue or a sin issue, it was a health issue on my part. I'd always had a very strong drive and assumed I always would, but I got a thyroid disorder, this autoimmune condition that, before it was diagnosed and properly medicated, had just tanked my energy, my thought life. I had brain fog all the time and I was just sort of a wreck. Ashley was so, so kind and encouraging walking with me through that season where for the first time ever, the bedroom which is a place I'd always wanted to just sprint to, I was reluctant to go because I had such a fear of inadequacy. I had anxiety around how my body was going to even respond.

It was a very, very vulnerable time and she was so patient and so tender through that. And so over a period of time, not a super long amount of time but over what felt like a long amount of time, finally got on the right medications, got myself feeling like myself again, and was back to feeling good and I feel good right now and I'm very thankful for that.

But I will tell you that in that Broken season that we walked through for those months, I'm thankful for that time because it's in the Broken seasons sometimes of life that God does the best work. The Bible says the Lord's close to the brokenhearted and I think that relates to the broken seasons of our marriage as well and even the broken seasons of our intimate life in marriage. God does something special in the vulnerability that can only happen in those moments when you feel like, "I can't do this on my own." And he really showed up and Ashley really showed up.

So now I know we'll likely walk through a Broken season again for health issues or whatever might come in the future, but I'm not afraid of it anymore because I know that even in the different challenges we'll face with it, God's always doing something special. If you're listening and you're in a Broken season right now because of health issues or trust issues or whatever it might be, just know God sees you, he is with you, he's going to walk with you through it and you will not be there forever.

Jim Daly: Let me ask you again, Ashley, and Dave will follow up with you, but I want to turn to the legacy idea of what we're building within family. Some couples do that intentionally, some couples are doing it accidentally. How do we have intentionality when it comes to building a legacy as we're married 40, 50, maybe even 60 years before we go on to heaven and we leave our kids, our adult kids with the grandkids and maybe even some great-grandkids? What is that legacy target? What are we trying to communicate? "We got through it and hopefully it'll all work out and we'll see you in heaven" doesn't sound like a very good legacy.

Ashley Willis: I think we have to continuously dream together and legacy is a huge part of that. It's like, "Why did God bring us together?" Why did he put Dave and Ashley together? Why did he put you and your spouse together? What is it? You can look back, especially for those who've been married a long time, you can look back and say, "Well, in this season, it was this, and in this season, it was this." I think it can look different in different seasons, but overall, I think it's good to every year take an assessment and to say, "What went right? What didn't go so right? What do we need to improve?" but also, "What is our marriage speaking to those around us? What is that overarching message?"

For us, I mean there's many, many things that we want to leave behind as a legacy, but I think the biggest one is that marriage is awesome. Even going through the hard moments, marriage is wonderful, it is a gift and that there is hope even in the hard times. That's something that we always want to point to. But I think for every couple, just coming back to that reason that God brought them together because I think in hard seasons, especially those broken seasons we talked about, we lose sight of that because we're just in critical condition, we're just trying to survive. But in order to thrive, we have to think about that bigger picture.

Jim Daly: I like that a lot. Let me ask you guys right at the end here, why don't you give the pitch for why the book's so important? I don't think we do this very often or maybe never, but you wrote it. I love it, I love the content. *Do Marriage Better*. Marriage feels like it's on the ropes in the culture. We see all the social data. If we as a culture really wanted to get to a better place, we need to protect marriage at all costs because it delivers healthy children and a healthy culture. So what's your greatest pitch for the book?

Dave Willis: I would say anything that matters to us we naturally have an inclination of wanting to improve. For some people that's "I want to get better at investing money," "I want to get better in my fitness," "I want to get better at my work," and those are all fine goals. But none of those hold a candle to the impact of getting better in your marriage because when we improve our marriage, every part of life will get better as a result. And when our marriage is hurting, every part of our life will start to hurt as a result.

God wants your marriage to thrive. He doesn't want you just to survive it, he wants you to thrive and to leave a legacy through your marriage. Maybe you feel like we're not on the path to do that right now, it's just a struggle. God wants to help you take those next steps and just get better. You don't have to fix everything all at once, but you can make decisions all at once to put you on a new path.

This book is practical as we can make it from working with couples for the last 15 years or so and from our own marriage and from what God's word says about these things. We've tried to distill these concepts down into the simplest action steps possible because I'm a pretty simple-minded guy, it's got to be clear for me. So we've tried to make it clear and I promise you if you'll do these things, it will make a positive difference in your marriage. Not because we invented any of this, but because this is how God designed marriage to be and we've seen this work over and over not only in our own marriage but in the marriages of many people we've been able to learn from and also to help.

Ashley Willis: Ideally, a couple does it together, but we always like to say it takes one spouse going first. I even think one spouse could read this and little by little make those simple shifts and you will see a difference. It's not going to happen overnight. It's not one giant step, it's just you're inching towards those goals, but every inch matters, every shift matters. So as far as it depends on you, make those shifts and I think you'll experience some positive effects from it.

Jim Daly: Well, and you guys have done it. It's not impossible and it's a valid thing to aim for is to want to do better, to understand your spouse better for all the benefits we've talked about, mainly your children so they come out with secure, loving attachments so that they can carry that legacy forward into their marriages. So thanks for being with us. It's been great. It's so good to talk with you both, it's a wonderful experience every time.

Dave Willis: Well, thank you for having us. We love Focus on the Family, we love you two guys and we just are honored to have the conversation.

Jim Daly: It's good. And let me turn to the listener. Here at Focus on the Family, we're committed to helping you build the strongest, healthiest marriage possible. We're trying to do that ourselves, everybody. This is good for each one of us to do that. And we have so many great tools to help you.

One is our counseling team. We're here for you. It's a great way you'll call the 800 number, John will provide that in a moment, they'll schedule a time they can call you back and talk about what you're facing and give you some great insight on what to do next, which might include tapping into our extensive referral network across the country. There are probably people near you that are Christian counselors that can help.

Another great resource obviously is the book by the Willises, *Do Marriage Better: Seven Simple Shifts for a Deeper Connection*. If you can make a gift of any amount, we'll send it to you as our way of saying thanks for being part of the ministry. If you can't afford it, we're here, we're a Christian ministry, we want your marriage to be better. Just get in touch with us, let us know that you need the book but you can't afford it and we'll take care of it, trusting others will cover the cost.

Let me also say the bigger part of that investment, that donation effort, let me give you the payback for what you're doing with us. Sarah wrote in and told us this: "Thank you so much for the heart and care you put into Focus on the Family. Your conversations and biblical guidance have been such an encouragement to my marriage, especially as we navigate complicated family relationships and changing seasons." That's right in their wheelhouse there, the chairs, right? "I'm truly grateful for the wisdom and compassion you share. It's made a real difference for us." That's it. That's the payback.

John Fuller: That's wonderful. That's why we exist as a ministry, to do that very kind of impact. And that's what we look at. We go out and survey those about two million people a year who contact us for help and together we're able to touch them and help them. That's what really matters.

So please, consider donating today. You can make that contribution when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. That's 800-232-6459. Or online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Join us next time as Jennifer Dukes Lee shares how she's learned to slow down in the different seasons of her life.

Guest (Female): And sometimes it's the little things like that. Having a friend or someone we love remind us that God delights in us, not just in what we are growing in our fields or in our lives. God delights in us wherever we have to be in the growth process.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.