Friends Without Benefits

Hey, friends, welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast we address the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. And we have an awesome subject matter today. We're calling it Friends Without Benefits. But it may not be what you think. So before we dive in, we have an awesome resource we want to tell you about.

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You know, I'm so excited to be talking about this topic because I think that there are multiple sides to this. And so, you know, we're calling it Friends Without Benefits. And so first and foremost, we're gonna talk about friendships. And if you haven't already listened to the podcast about couple friends, please go back and listen to that. But we wanna talk about specifically when you have friends, couple friends, or even just friends that you have individually that do not benefit your marriage. So they're technically friends without benefits. How do we deal with that?

Yeah, and that's a big, big deal. One thing we have found in the work that we do is one of the best indicators of what your marriage is going to look like five years from now is in the people you're choosing to hang out with right now. Your friends, your inner circle, your peers, those people who are part of your life, your biggest influencers. If their marriages are really strong, and if they love you, love God, love your spouse, and are for marriage, your marriage is most likely going to grow stronger in the years to come. But if you have some close friends in your life or influencers of any kind in your life who don't love your spouse or who are down on marriage or who are always celebrating the divorced life or who are kind of tempting you or inviting you to kind of things and lifestyle choices that could be detrimental to your marriage, that is going to erode the foundation of your marriage. And so we've got to choose our friends so carefully, and we've got to be really intentional about who we're giving access to in our life and who the voices we're listening to. And this doesn't mean we become, like, snobby or elitist. And we're Just like shutting the door on everybody. Because you can stay connected to somebody even if you don't agree with everything that they do.

Of course.

But the Bible talks so much about friendships. One thing the Bible says is, don't be misled. Bad company corrupts good character. If you are allowing yourself to be in the presence of someone whose lifestyle is not helpful for marriage, eventually that's probably going to have a negative impact in your marriage.

It's so true. And I think where this becomes particularly tricky is when we have a childhood friend that we've, like, known most of our life, and there's all this history we have with this person, and then we get married, and for whatever reason, this childhood friend just is down on our spouse. That's where this is a huge problem. Because you have, like. You're like, I've known this person longer than I've known my spouse. You know, they've walked with me through X, Y, Z. They've been there for me through really, you know, tough moments in my life. Or I've been there for them and I don't want to, like, completely shut them out. But I also don't like how negative they are on my spouse. You know, I know that that's a tricky situation, but it's not as complicated as we wanna make it out to be. Cause the truth is, when we get married, our first loyalty when it comes to a human relationship belongs to our spouse. And so when we're giving more loyalty to that childhood friend than we are to our spouse, and we're not standing up for our spouse, and we're not standing up for our marriage, we're really. We're really kind of allowing that person to have more influence in our life than even our spouse.

And.

And we're really kind of throwing our spouse under the bus. And so think about it that way. Think about if you would want your spouse to not stand up for you and to allow their friend to walk all over you or to allow their friend to be real negative about marriage. And I think when we look at it that way, we see, oh, I really probably shouldn't let this person kind of wiggle their way into my mind, so to speak. And so if you have that childhood friend, I'm not saying completely cut off all contact. I'm just saying you need to stand up and you need to kind of lay down the boundaries and say, listen, I love you. You've been such a good friend to me.

And.

But for some reason, you were so negative about my spouse. And it really messes with me. And it really hurts my heart when you talk about my spouse that way. And I want to be good friends. You know, we have so many years together, but I just can't stand for you talking about my spouse or my marriage in this way. And if you continue to do this, I'm just not going to be able to hang around you as much.

Yeah, yeah. It's so true. And I know that can be awkward. I know that maybe there's a certain person coming to your mind right now and. And you're thinking, I think, yeah, we all have some of those people. Hopefully you're not that person for anybody. Don't be that person. But, yeah, we've got to have the courage to have those conversations. You know, we're going to talk all about friendship today. I want to make a quick side note, though, and not try to derail the topic, but I do think that this is relevant. I think that what we choose to watch consistently on television, like a show you're into, there's certain shows you're into and certain characters on those shows over time. And it almost mimics in our head that that person is our friend and they become an influence to us. And very often we're inviting people into our home through what we're watching as entertainment that we would maybe never invite into our home in person, because I wouldn't let somebody talk that way in my home or use that kind of language or be that disrespectful. And yet we think it's safe to look at it just in the lens of entertainment. But what it does, and there's research to back this up, and I'm not going to make this a media episode. And I'm not gonna say, like, burn your TV either. I mean, we're for technology, but we've gotta be careful about what we're looking to, the voices we're listening to, whether it's through the friendship or whether it's through just what we're counting as entertainment, because it is subtly shaping or reshaping our view, our view of marriage. So that's all I'm gonna say about that. But that's for somebody. There's somebody out there that needed to hear that, that you're watching something consistently. You're binge watching some things that are actually, actually hurting your marriage, and you might need to kind of reset what you're looking at.

Absolutely. And so we're going to shift a little bit and talk about couple friends in particular. We talked about the individual friends, which Definitely. You know, I think that can. The individual friends are tricky just because sometimes the personality may not mix. Like, they may be best friends with your husband, but for whatever reason, they kind of rub you the wrong way, and you don't really understand why they became friends in the first place. But they are friends. And so you try to find the best in them, but you don't necessarily want to hang out as a couple a lot. And I get that. And, you know, it's just important, again, to stand up and make sure that there's no friends in your life that are, like, bashing your spouse or telling you to leave your spouse or to be really negative about marriage. But when it comes to couple friends, I think sometimes we can fall into these dynamics where, you know, we're hanging out with people and maybe they're fine. Like, maybe they're pro marriage, so to speak, but maybe they're involved in some kind of behaviors that. That just are kind of leading you down, you know, a bad path. Like, maybe they're heavy drinkers, and it's like bringing more alcohol into your life, and it ends up, you know, leading to bad decisions later. Or maybe. Maybe like, what Dave talked about. They're really into, like, certain scenes that aren't really the best influence on you, shows or whatever. You know, we need to think about that too, because, you know, there's people that, you know, whenever we introduce new people into our life, the more we hang out with them, the more we become like them. And there might be certain, you know, things. Things that. That before weren't part of your life and it wasn't even an issue, and all of a sudden it's an issue now. So it's really important to take it to kind of stand back, take a really hard look at the people you're hanging out most with in your life and really think about, like, am I a better person when I'm around these people, and am I making them better when I'm around them? And if your answer is no, I would give some distance there because again, that's some friends without benefits on both sides.

They're not benefiting. And we're talking, again, primarily here about people who are a regular part of your life. I'm not just somebody that you see on occasion, you see at the Christmas party. I mean, we're not saying that you sequester yourself and you never interact. You know, we're called to be light in the world, and you can't be a light if you're always, you know, hiding underneath Something we gotta be out there in the world.

And that's kind of elitist, like you were talking about. We don't want to be like that.

And that's certainly not what we're called to. You know, Jesus says, go be salt and light, which can only happen when you're out there in the world among the people. But he also gives us a lot of instruction about choosing very wisely, your inner circle. And again, Jesus is a great example of this. He was out in the crowds. He was, you know, doing his doing, loving people, serving people, helping people on a mass scale, and not being elitist at all. He was out there with them. But then he was so fiercely protective of his inner circle. And he chose 12 guys. And out of those 12, he chose three guys that were really his inner circle, the ones he was doing life with. And I think that's a great model for us, that we. We need to be intentional.

Right?

And. And then Jesus prayed a whole lot about who that inner circle should be. If you read the Gospels, I mean, he didn't just make this decision randomly by pulling names out of a hat. And we should be praying. Like, are you praying? And I'm challenging myself here, because I haven't. This isn't something I've done a lot. Are we praying specifically about God? Who are the people that you want to be the biggest influencers in my life? What are the friendships I should be investing in and really growing in? And what are those relationships that maybe I need to create some distance? And I feel like we should have these conversations with our spouse. We should evaluate it ourselves, and we should specifically pray about it, because so much is at stake here.

Cuando entras a Burlington encuentras precios increibles y regalos geniales Jesus energia del protagonista porquen Burlington los ahoros festivos nos son lo uni co que llama la attencion descubria jasgos de calidar y regalos perfectos paratodos and tulista des de jugetes hijack. And, you know, I love that you started talking about prayer, because I think the sign of a true friend is someone who will pray for you and will pray for your spouse and that you would do the same for them. Like, those are friends who really care about you. Those are friends who really want the best for you. And, you know, my closest friendships, a lot of our friends, you know, we lived in Augusta, Georgia, which has a military community there. So a lot of our Closest friends are military and they've since moved and we've since moved. So they're all over the country, sometimes the world even, you know, they go all over. And so we're not necessarily in close proximity. But some of my best friends are ones that I talk to and that I know are praying for me and I'm praying for them. And whenever I talk to them, they don't always just tell me what I wanna hear, you know. Cause sometimes it's like hard stuff where they have to kinda press you and be like, hmm, that's probably, you know, you need to really pray about that, Ashley. And that, you know, you looking at this particular situation in this way, I mean, are you really looking at it through kind of a lens that God would have you look through? And I love that because it's really like the verse talks about iron sharpening iron. Like, real friends don't just tell you what you wanna hear. They tell you the hard truth, but they tell it to you in love. And those friendships are the kind that, that really have helped me to grow, have helped me to be a better wife, have helped me to be a better mom. And, you know, I'm so thankful for those friendships. And I always want to strive to be that kind of friend. But again, these don't just happen too. It takes a lot of investment. And, you know, when you are spending a lot of time, whether it be in person or on the phone or just in correspondence, you know, the time and effort you put into that, you want to make sure it is beneficial on both ends. You know, both. It's beneficial to you, but it's also beneficial to them. And so it is so important to really choose your friends carefully and to really, really ask God to search your heart and to help you to be a better friend.

Yeah, man, that is so good. You know, another biblical example of what this can look like is if you look back in the Old Testament, there's a great story where Moses is leading the people, leading them in battle. And leadership can be lonely, by the way. I think that any kind of leadership, having the right friends around you is so important. And the Israelites were winning the battle as long as Moses arms remained in the air. It was like this act of faith of him being able to lift his arms, but he couldn't in his own strength hold them up. And so on either side of him, he had Aaron and Hur that were holding up an arm. And essentially it's this beautiful picture and a modern metaphor for us of finding those people who will kind of hold your arms up when you can't lift them up yourself. They will loan you their strength to help you get through something. That's friendship. Someone that will loan you their strength when you're not strong enough to do it on your own. And then you, in turn, do the same for them. So who are those people in your life that are making you stronger? And if they're making you weaker, then they're not a friend, Right? And, you know, and yeah, we take turns being strong for each other, which is something, you know, Ashley's so wisely said about marriage itself, which is the ultimate friendship. But in our friendships, we also need that people who make us stronger people where we can take turns being strong for each other. We all need that.

We do. And I just wanna make this point very clear here too, is that there's no perfect friend out there, just like there's no perfect spouse. Like, we're gonna make mistakes. Our friends are going to make mistakes. But I think what we have to look at is really the heart of where they're coming from, because, again, we're all flawed. There might be a time where this friend has always traditionally been such a great friend to you, but then all of a sudden, there's kind of this moment, this season in their life where they seem kind of angsty or they seem like down on your spouse, because maybe their spouse has been really kind of not very nice to them. There's gonna be those kind of moments. But we're talking about, you know, what is kind of the common thread in this friendship. And if you find that maybe they're a bad influence on you or maybe on your spouse, you need to speak up. It's important to talk about these things, especially when your spouse can't see it. Because sometimes when we're in the thick of a friendship, especially if we've been friends for a long time, it's hard to see those flaws because we care about them so much. And we're like, there's all this history. And we say things like, well, well, you just don't know them like I do, you know, because I've had all this history with this person. But, you know, as the spouse, if you look at that friendship and you're like, that friend is constantly making my husband go back and do these old things that he's moved past. And I don't like that bad influence in his life. Or this person is making my wife fall back into old habits. Or every time she spends time with this friend, she comes Home to me. And she's so mean to me. Like, it's like her tone is totally different with me. You know, that's something that you need to gently point out with your spouse. And I say gently meaning do it in love and not just making accusations, but also be completely honest and be very, you know, open about this with them because they may not be able to see it. I think so many times we have blind spots when it comes to these long friendships. And so we need to have our spouse, you know, speak into that, but we also need to be open to what our spouse has to say about that friend.

That is so. There's so much there. I hope you guys might want to just. People don't rewind anymore, you know, I guess that's not a thing. I'm like, oh, replay. You know, we had to rewind is my era. Back in the old days, we had to rewind stuff. You kids today have no idea how good you got it. You can just skip. But replay what Ashley just said. There was so much wisdom there about blind spots, about the delicacy that we need to navigate as we're. As we're speaking difficult truth to each other, but then also about the humility of being able to hear that difficult truth. Man, that's just a roadmap for, I think, any kind of important and difficult conversation in marriage. All right, well, we're gonna kind of switch gears here. This is kind of part two now of Friends Without Benefits. Cause we're gonna talk about what you probably thought the episode was about originally.

Exactly.

When your marriage becomes a friendship without benefits. Talking specifically about sex, affection. And so that's what today's question is. And thank you for those who send in questions@nakedmarriagepodcast.com that we answer here live on the air. And thank you also to those who reach out to us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, all that. We love getting your messages, but today's message is really an important one and one that we. We hear different versions of this question a lot. And so it's an important issue, and we're gonna. We're gonna tackle it straight on. Sweetie, would you like to. To read today's question?

Absolutely. All right. She says, I resent my husband. He always denies me intimacy and sex. For years, he has done this to me, then pressured me to have a baby. He even lost interest during sex. When I told him I wanted to wait to have a baby, I. Then when I conceived, he didn't touch me the entire pregnancy. He's Military, So I had no family or friends near me to support me. Our child is 3, and I want more children, but I do not trust him with me anymore. I do not want to have any more of his children. I just don't trust him. Even when things are okay. That still haunts me. He hasn't done anything to make me feel comfortable about it, which further pushes the issue. I know if I get pregnant by him again, he will do the same to me. I. I don't know what to do or how to get past this deep resentment. And, you know, my heart breaks. Like, as I'm reading this, my heart is breaking for this wife because I can tell that she's so conflicted and she's so hurt. And so whoever wrote this, if you're listening, I mean, just know that our hearts are breaking with you. And we realize this is not, you know, when we give answers to these questions, it's not. We're not giving easy answers. We know that this is a process, and it takes two people in a marriage for sure. And so, you know, I just want to own the fact that it is a little complicated and it's a heartbreaking place to be.

It really, really is. And, you know, without knowing the specifics of your. You know, of him and you and your story, but just trying to answer this as best we can on a broader scale of. In this situation, here's what I'd look at. What we found in the work that we do is that when there is a lack of sex and trust and intimacy in marriage, there's usually some specific reasons why. Part of that, it seems, it sounds to me like with both the trust issue that you mentioned and the sex issue, both of those are often tied to some secrets that have not been fully confessed. And that means anything in his life that he has done or maybe is doing, whether it's being caught up in pornography, being caught up in a sexual affair, having dealt with past sexual abuse that has kind of rewired his thinking about sex that he has not confessed to you and talked about with you. But we call this the Naked Marriage Podcast. Our book is called the Naked Marriage. It's not, of course, just about sex and physical nakedness, but that nakedness is a picture of having no secrets from each other. That's the only way intimacy can live. And I would say you've got to start by just putting it all out there on the table. Everything you're feeling, you need to tell him everything that he is. Maybe not everything he's feeling, maybe Everything he's hiding, he needs to share. I was on a phone call with a friend right before I walked in here today, and he was kind of catching me up on this story that was sort of like this in his marriage. He and his wife, who I've been friends with for a long time, he said they've been in kind of a dry spell, and a lot of it was him. He said, I felt like she was maybe pulling away, and I didn't know what was going on with her. But with him, he'd been harboring this secret for about 10 years that he finally just felt convicted that he had to confess this. And so his secret was during a really low point in their marriage about a decade before, when they were basically newlyweds, he went to a massage parlor. And in a moment of weakness, you know, I guess it turned out to be kind of like a shady massage parlor. And he had a happy ending massage. You know, essentially he didn't have sex with this person. But, you know, you know, without getting too graphic, there was. There was sexual release. It was essentially an act of prostitution. And he had kind of carried this shame and the secret of that for 10 years and allowed it to kind of separate him from God, separate him from his wife. And when he finally got to the place where he could confess that, not sure how she would respond, not sure if she would leave him, but he's just like, there can't be any secrets. I've got to get this out there. It really began the process of healing and allowed her to confess that there had been a period where she'd essentially had an emotional affair with someone that never got physical or sexual, but that she'd had these clearly out of bounds feelings and interactions with someone. And so when both of them got their. Their junk out there, so to speak, it put them on this path of healing. And he said, you know, they weren't comfortable conversations. He said, but now fast forward a little bit of time later, and he said, we've never been closer. And then he specifically said, our sex life has never been better because there was always this kind of cloud hanging overhead where these secrets had robbed us of that intimacy. But now there's such freedom in the bedroom and there's such connection. So I don't know what your husband's going through, what he's hiding. It's clearly out of bounds the way he's treating you. It's clearly wrong, and I hate what you're going through. It's heartbreaking to hear stories like this and this is not your fault. But at the same time, you know, I feel like you don't have all the information you need to get from him. You know, what is it that you're not telling me? Because this doesn't add up, and this isn't a marriage, and we've got to move forward. I think a professional Christian marriage counselor could be part of the solution. Or our coaches here at Marriage Today, who specialize in helping couples who are in crisis. You can find out more about them@marriagetoday.com coaches. But I've talked way too long about this.

No, it's. I mean, so good, sweetie. And just to add to that, I know there's this element of he wants to have a baby with her, but then when she gets pregnant, he refuses to have sex with her. And as I was reading that, I thought that is definitely. There's an underlying issue there. Like, there's something that he's not telling you that is a deep wound inside of him. Not inflicted by you, but just from a past. There's something that is unresolved. And that, to me, I mean, just as just reading that and then the work that we've done with marriages, I can tell you with certainty that there's something that he needs to heal from with that. And unfortunately, you're the one who's kind of paying for it, you know, but it's something that the two of you have definitely. I would definitely seek out a Christian marriage counselor, and I would encourage him to go by himself. And just, you know, when you tell him. And I can tell she has talked to him some because that's why she feels so distrusting. Cause I think when she's talking to him, she's getting, like, a brick wall. But I would tell him, you know, and say, like, listen, the longing you have to have a baby with me to have another child. You know, in the same way, I feel that longing to connect with you. And then knowing that when I get pregnant, you completely deny me sexually, so I'm doing the very thing you want me to do, and God's blessing us in that way. And then you completely cut me off sexually, and it is heartbreaking. And there's something really wrong with that because you're completely cutting me off with intimacy. And so I definitely would just encourage you. Even if he won't go to counseling yet, I encourage you to go see a counselor, because I think that this has caused a lot of brokenness in you because you are just, again, you're getting this brick wall. You don't know why your husband is not wanting to connect with you through this. And so it has been very heartbreaking to you. But I want you to know that we are praying for you and we are praying for your husband, and. And we just hope that you both reach out and get the help that you need. And we appreciate you writing this question.

Yes, get the help that you need. There are organizations specifically to help military couples and the very unique challenges that our warriors face. And so both as the spouse of a military member or military members yourself, first off, thank you for your service, but don't become a statistic. You know, fight for your marriage. The American warriors association, which you can find more about@americanwarriorsassociation.org has a lot of great resources. And then as do we at marriage today. Marriagetoday.com and so if you are struggling with a sexless marriage, denying a spouse sexually is a really. It's an intimate form of pain and even betrayal on some levels. And we have a lot of resources to kind of help you navigate that. And then ultimately, like Ashley said, counseling is usually part of. Part of that equation. So thank you for that. That question. We're praying for you, praying that God would guide your steps and your conversations as you tell your husband everything that needs to be said. And then insist on saying, we can't live like this.

Right.

So I insist that we take action through counseling or through whatever those next steps need to be, because you don't need to. You don't need to settle for living with that kind of dynamic.

Absolutely.

So, guys, thank you so much for listening. I know we've covered a lot today in a fairly short amount of time, but I think really important topics. And so thank you for those who subscribe to this podcast and share it and review it, we appreciate you guys so, so much.

That's right. We will see you all next time.