Want a Better Marriage?

So give me 10 minutes to 12 minutes, and you will get some great information. What we know is what you’re going through. My wife and I have experienced this. We both raised our children to the best of our ability, and we both tried to meet the challenges of marriage in separate marriages. Guess what? We failed. We failed, I’m going to just be really honest with you. We failed. We’ve got divorced, both of us. Guess what we know? We know what not to do, and we’re experts at what not to do.

We’ve learned from experience, a lot of pain and suffering, what happened to us, what happened to my wife, what happened to me, and I’m going to tell you a little bit about what happened to me because it’s going to affect both wives and husbands. When you get this video and you show your husband, it’s going to … or your spouse, it’s going to make a big difference. We’ve learned that our … After our marriage, our new marriage. My wife and I have been married for 14 years, and we wish we did know what we know now before. Oh my gosh, it had been so much better.

It’s going to be better for you if you will listen to this video and give us your email address. There’s going to be a lot of information shared, but most importantly, you’re going to know what some of the problems are. This is just a real basic problem … problems I’m going to share today. We have a lot more information, but let me get going here.

I’ve been studying human behavior from a Christian perspective for about 20 years. You know why I started studying it? Because after my divorce, I knew that something was wrong. I knew that I had major problems of insecurity. I was raised by a father that was a rageaholic. He was verbally abusive. He was emotionally very abusive, and it was very difficult. I had inferiority. I was insecure. I felt worthless, and I brought that into my marriage. You know what? I also have rage problems because that’s what I learned from my father.

What ended up happening is I brought all that into my marriage, and I know about these serious issues, but I began studying. I wanted to get to the root of them. I didn’t want to just continue living the way I was living. What happened is I found out that I had actually asked my ex-wife, without really knowing what I was doing, but I was doing it for sure, to fill up my emotional needs. She was a people-pleaser. You know what? What was great about this was I thought she … Because she liked rescuing people, I thought, “Well, shoot. She can rescue me and help me with my emotional needs.”

What I didn’t realize … That’s one of the reasons I picked her, but what I didn’t realize is I was actually making her my mother. You know what I found out? No woman wants to be a mother. That’s not what they want to be. They want to be a wife. They don’t want to be a mother. I was actually making her my mother, and I found out that when this happens that my wife in particular, after couple years of this, decided, “No more. I don’t want to be a mother. I already raise 3 kids. I already had to go through this with one husband. I’m not doing this again with another one,” and so she decided she wasn’t going to do this.

Well, the more I studied, I found out that behavioral scientists call this “marriage role reversal.” What happens is, is that if my needs weren’t met and they weren’t, then I am going to look to my wife, and this happens to a lot of men. It can happen to women too, but often times, it’s men that … What happens is, is I try to get my needs met from my wife, and that is not the place to get my needs met, I found out, so I got a little upset when she wasn’t meeting my needs. You may have too, but what happens is, is that … When she stopped doing that, I went through emotional upheaval, and our marriage really suffered.

I was trying to find out what the heck was she talking about. She didn’t want to be a mother, and boy, it was difficult. It was really hard, and so what happened is, is that I realized from studying and from really researching this out that I had given up my power to my wife because I was so needy. I didn’t get what I needed when I was a child, and because I didn’t get what I needed when I was a child from my mother and my father, I was so insecure, and so needy, and so broken that I needed to get this from somewhere.

God wired me to get my emotional needs met, but I found out that I can’t get them from my wife because, number one, she wasn’t going to let me, and number two, that’s not what psychologists and behavioral scientists tell us is to be done. We can’t get them met. We have to get them met from a group of safe people, and I would add Christian safe people because I want to be with people that are with Jesus with skin on, and what they’re going to do is they are going to, in a way, so to speak, re-parent me.

How are they going to do that? Well, I’m going to talk to them about what happened to me as a child, and what’s going to happen then is I am going to be listened to, and I’m going to be emotionally connected to, and I’m going to be loved on, accepted, and approved or validated for who I am, and not judged, and not fixed, and that’s why it’s a safe group.

What I found out was that when I did that, and I did that for years, 3 or 4, 5 years, and what happened is I started to heal emotionally. When I started to heal emotionally, what happened was I wasn’t so needy. Well, my wife joined with me in this, and we put together a whole plan of re-parenting. We have put together a plan that works, and it’s worked with a lot of people. You can go to the testimony page, and you can see. We have a different marriage because we don’t look to each other to meet our needs.

What we do in fact is I found out that what I could do is actually have a choice. When I gave away my power, I didn’t have a choice. You know what’s really interesting? When I gave away my power and I gave away my choice to my wife, I couldn’t love her like Paul talked about in Ephesians 20 … Well, about 24 through 28. I couldn’t love my wife like Christ loved the church because I didn’t have a choice. I gave away my choice. I gave away my power to love.

Love is a choice. Please understand love is a choice, and my wife … What I did is … Before I tell you about what happened with my wife, what happened to me was that I resented her. Remember? I said that. I resented her. How can I love her if I’m resenting her like Christ loved the church? You know what? Paul even went further, and he said, “If I love my wife, I love myself.” Oh my gosh, that’s pretty important, but then I go on to Ephesians 5:28 and find out that the wife is commanded to respect her husband.

How many men want to be respected? How many wives have a problem respecting the little boys they’re married to and having to grow … push them and prod them to grow up just like a mother would? Well, you can’t respect a little boy, and that’s really, really hard. What we found out was that if we would get emotionally healed or as we got emotionally healed, you know what ended up happening? Our marriage got exciting. Our marriage got very, very blessed. You know why? Because I no longer was one down. Think of it this way. If I give her my power and went down to her, I resented that. I didn’t like that, and she was [one 00:10:30].

Well, that’s not what God had in mind. What God had in mind was that we would be equal. My wife and I would be equal. How would we be equal if I was so needy and she was so needy? We can’t be equal. Emotionally needy people can’t be equal. It can’t be done, and so that’s what my research showed. Here we are, and what did we end up doing? What we ended up doing was getting to more equality. When we got to more equality, we got to more intimacy, and I’m not talking about the kind you’re thinking about probably. I’m talking about real intimacy, the kind every wife wants and every man would do well to have, and that is “into me, you see.”

Well, there’s a lot more to share with you. I can’t do it right now, but I can tell you that if you’ll go ahead and give us your email address, we have a lot more information. I can help you. My wife and I can help you, and I can particularly help you because I did the research, and I did the work. You know what? We have a lot of information that we can send you, and we will for free. Can you imagine that? For free if you’ll give us your email address. Then, you can go ahead and find out much more, much more about how to have not only a better marriage, but a great marriage.