How To Be "All-In"

Welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on the podcast, we Undress the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. We're in a great series this fall talking about our favorite marriage advice, spending one week just to dedicate to each little nugget of marriage advice that's really helped us through the years. And I hope you guys are enjoying this as much as we are. But before we dive into today's episode, Ashley's gonna read a recent review, and we so appreciate the reviews you guys leave us on itunes or spot wherever you're listening or here on YouTube if you're watching. Thank you for leaving reviews and comments. We read them and we appreciate them so much. So, my love, why don't you read one for us?

We do, and this person's handle is maybe my favorite that I've ever heard. It's from Fizzy Bottoms.

Fizzy Bottoms.

Fizzy Bottoms. And it is entitled Bible and Sex in Truth. Five stars. Thank you. Fizzy Bottoms. And he or she said, so refreshing to have someone else to talk about sex from a biblical position. I am recommending this podcast to all the married people I know. God' in marriage is spiritual and physical oneness. Thank you for speaking honestly about a topic that Satan has used against many believers. And that's so well said, because, you know, we do. We want to talk about sex so many times. We don't in the church and we get kind of awkward about it, but sex was actually God's idea for married people, and so we love talking about sex. So thank you, Fizzy Bottoms, for that.

Awesome review, and thank you because now I'm always looking for new pet names for you, and I think Busy Bottoms might be a new one. It just.

Oh, my goodness.

If you start getting texts, our children.

Will really think it's weird.

Well, we already gross them out. Just let it continue. Let it continue. But we'll get to that later, though. Right now, we're going to dive into today's episode. I love the marriage advice we're going to tackle today. We were told early on in our marriage, be all in. And I didn't know what that really expression meant other than as a poker term where you, like, push all of your chips into the middle of the table, saying, you know, I'm betting everything that I've got on this. But being all in in marriage, we've learned it isn't about betting anything. People act like marriage is a gamble somehow. They say, oh, well, you know, X percent of marriages end in divorce. You're really just gambling. It's not that at all. Like Jimmy Evans has always said, your marriage has a 100% chance of success if you're willing to do it God's way. And God's way is to be all in. And all in means a lot of different things. It means no exit strategies where, you know, divorce is completely off the table. No matter what comes your way, you're gonna face it together and you're just committed.

And.

And it also means giving everything you've got. I think this, for the sake of what we'll talk about today is probably the biggest topic, is simply giving your spouse your best. All of yourself and not your leftovers. So much of what kills a marriage, it isn't the big explosive things like having an affair, even though that'll obviously wreck a marriage, but it's consistently doing those little things. Like, I'm just not giving my best. I'm giving my best to my work or my hobbies or other things, and then bringing my leftovers home. So if we're going to be all, it means giving the best of ourselves and all of ourselves completely and fully to marriage. And so, sweetie, what does that look like? And how can we do a better job of that?

Oh, I love this term all in. And I think that, you know, even, like, I think people use it in the sports community. Not that I am an expert by any stretch. Like, Dave's smiling. Like, what are you talking about? But I've heard that they tell the players to be all in, you know, and it is what you're talking about. It's like you're gonna, you know, even when we're not here together, you're working out like, you are trying to become your best for this team. Well, in marriage, it's the same way. We need to be each other's, you know, best encourager, best partner. We're in this together. We're all in, win or lose. Right? And we wanna win together. So I think one way we can win together is by always making sure we're communicating. And I know we talk about communication a lot on this podcast, but to be all in, there can't be anything that you can't talk about. Okay?

Right.

Like, you have to just be willing to talk about the hard stuff. And I think that if there's these things where you're just like, well, we share everything but this, like, that's not being all in because you're keeping a part of your life, a part of your mind, a part of your heart from your Spouse. And if we wanna have a naked marriage, a truly intimate, vulnerable, transparent marriage, then we have to be willing to talk about all the things. Okay. And we were laughing, actually, just the other day. I mean, sometimes it can tmi. Guys, I get it. Like, you may not want to know about every little detail about your spouse's routine, whatever.

Right. You can fill in the blank things.

But, like, you know, Dave and I have been married almost 20 years, and sometimes I'll say something about how I'm feeling or, you know, whatever, and then I'll. After I say it, I'm like, whoa, that was probably more information than you really wanted to know about my bodily functions or whatever random thought I had.

No, I wanted. I want it all. I want to know.

The point is, I'm willing to talk about it.

Yeah. Like, we share everything down to, like, gross details, because it's. I wanna know everything about you.

Well, I had. Let me just. I'm gonna pause on this for a minute. This really has nothing to do with being all in. Or maybe it does. I don't know. I had a couple that was shocked. Shocked that Dave. I'm trying to remember what it was. I think it was, like, about passing gas. Like that he's ever heard me pass gas or if I've heard him. And I was like, yes, because we've been married for.

You had some. Like.

I don't know how you could hide that. You know, not that I'm like, something.

Seriously wrong with your intestines, if.

Well, I'm just saying, like, it's not like I'm trying to. Like.

Yeah, you're. You're just doing life together.

Part of life.

You know, we got here fast.

I know.

From all in within. Within the first few minutes, we're already on gas and bodily functions, and we're going for it.

Like, it's funny to me that for some couples. And maybe you're one of those couples where you're like, I would die if my spouse ever heard that. Now I live in a house full of boys. Literally. We have four boys. Like, gas is a language in our house. It's a competition, and I will never win that competition.

Well. And you don't compete.

I don't even compete.

And really. And we're trying to help the boys not compete because they're very proud of their functions, their bodily functions. And again, this is maybe more information than you were looking for. You're like, I want to know how to be all in on my marriage, not how to burp louder or whatever. And so. But you just never know where things are going to go. Like, I was on a random side note, you were saying you don't have any sports knowledge.

I really don't.

You have grown because now you'll actually refer to halftime being halftime instead of calling it intermission.

Intermission. I did call it intermission for a while. I'm a theater kid, so.

Right. And calling them costumes instead of uniforms.

I did face costumes.

Right. And so we've come a long way.

My mom still calls them costumes.

We're still growing, we're still learning. But you've come a long way. And so it's all about the growing.

It is. But in all seriousness.

Yes.

What I meant by the whole passing gas thing is just sometimes I feel like. I mean, if you don't pass gas in front of your spouse. Awesome. Like, maybe we should have never started that. That's great. But I'm just saying there can't be any part of our life that we're hiding from each other. Okay. We have to be willing to talk about everything and to be in the know. I think, you know, being all in is being in the know. What's going on with your spouse.

Just what's going on. I love this really comes down to. Ashley just gave you the million dollar idea for this whole episode a few minutes ago when she said, just be willing to talk about everything. You know, it's everything. Like, that's what being all in is. It's like, don't compartmentalize your marriage. Where with my spouse, I'm going to talk about these things. But all these other things are off the table. I'm not going to really go there with anything related to my work or anything related to my fears or my past or anything like that. And you're not giving your full heart, your full anything to your marriage. And you can't be married only being halfway invested. You can't be married being halfway in. You've got to be all in. It's the only way that it can work. And we see so many couples who struggle with this. Like, they're just so reluctant to dive all the way in. It's like they have one big toe dipped into the pools of marriage. But they're holding onto this giant exit strategy or something else, because they're afraid to be vulnerable. They're afraid to be intimate. And you can't live that way. You'll never experience real love or real anything if you're not all the way in. And again, I mean, this is a biblical example Jesus, all through the Gospels, some of the all in languages he uses is just mind blowingly bold. And it's awesome because why would you want to live any other way? He's saying, you can't follow me halfway. You've got to be all the way in. And then in terms of marriage, the scripture gives kind of similar examples. It's got to be all the way. And why would you want to settle for anything less? I think our world has conditioned us to think that we've got to live with all these exit strategies in every part of life, and we can't fully trust anybody. And, you know, we want to have all of our eggs spread out in all these different baskets. But in marriage, the only way it can work is if you say, hey, you got all of me, the good, bad, and the other. That's what a naked marriage is. That's why we call this podcast the Naked Marriage. That's why our book is called the Naked Marriage. That's right. I just happen to have one right here. That's right. If you're not watching YouTube, then the visual aid won't mean anything to you. But we have the Naked Marriage book where we share more of our story. The Naked Marriage is really going back to the beginning. God created the first couple naked and unashamed. And nakedness is a picture of saying, I got nothing to hide from you. I'm all yours. I'm all in. You see me scars and all the good parts, the ugly parts, the parts that I hide from other people. Like, you see it all. It's not just in a physical sense, but in every part of your life, you need to be naked, and that requires all in.

It does. And I think where this is kind of a sticking point for a lot of couples is feeling like when they get married that they're just gonna completely lose any sense of individuality. And, you know, we've said this before on the podcast, but I really think it kind of proves the point here when it comes to being all in, is that God calls us to unity, to becoming one. It says to become one. And, you know, he calls us to unity, very much so. But he doesn't call us to uniformity, you know, and just because you're sharing your life with your spouse and you are all in, doesn't mean that you can't be the unique person that you are. I mean, you're never gonna be all alike. You would seriously annoy each other to death if you were, you know, perfect clones of each other. But it's Just this beautiful mix that, you know, the two of you bring together uniquely and that you still have that sense of who you are, but you get to do life together and share everything together and just, you know, go all in together. And so it just enriches your life and takes it to a whole new level.

Yeah, it really, really does. And I love that picture. Unity, but not uniformity. That together as one, you know, you can become really the best versions of yourselves as individually while becoming the best versions of yourself as a couple united by God into this new oneness, this new covenant. But you don't surrender that beautiful God given uniqueness that he gave you and your personality. You just bring all of that with you into the marriage and continue to grow that. I love it.

You know, I think one of the most important aspects of being all in is saying, I will fight for you. I will fight for you no matter what, and I will fight for this marriage that I'm not gonna give up on you. And you know, so many times we talk about this. Cause you know, there's going to be a time like maybe you're listening to this and you're newlyweds and you've like not even had a fight yet, and you're just like, we're just never gonna have to deal with the hard stuff. I guess we just hit the jackpot. And then the hard stuff comes because that's life. Because we live in an imperfect world and there's stuff that we don't see coming our way. And you know, I love how Dave always says this. He says, you know, we need to decide now before the hard stuff comes, that we're gonna fight for each other, that we're gonna work through the hard stuff. And we don't get to choose what the hard stuff is. I mean, most of the time, sometimes we do. Cause sometimes we bring on some hard stuff into our lives. But, you know, a lot of times it's just stuff like circumstances that happen to us that we don't even see coming our way. And if we take that time to choose now to fight for each other and kind of, you know, have that resolve going into the hard stuff, then we can truly make it through anything. You know, with God, the husband and the wife choosing to fight for each other, to lean on God and then to lean on each other, and there is literally nothing you can't make it through. And one of my favorite things in the work that we do with marriages is seeing just miraculous things happen when couples refuse to give up on each other. And refusing to give up on their marriage. Because what happens is when they get through that hard stuff, they come out the other side so much stronger. I mean, so much stronger. And that's our story. We share that story in the book that we just talked about, the Naked Marriage. But time and time again, you know, we don't like going through those hard seasons. But when you do refuse to give up on each other and you keep on fighting for each other, there is so much you learn and there's such strength on the other side of that. I mean, I even envision it like, you know, when there's a butterfly trying to come out of the chrysalis. And if any of you know that, like, if you've ever watched it on, like, the Discovery Channel, it looks like, somebody help that butterfly. Somebody, you know, clip that chrysalis and just let that butterfly fly. But the truth of the matter is that butterfly could never fly on its own if it didn't make it through that hard time in the chrysalis. And in the same way I feel like every marriage is tested, we go through these hard seasons. And what you will find out the longer that you're married is that you would never make it for the long haul had you not gone through the chrysalis and the pain of getting out of that hard time. And so I just want to encourage you, if you want to stay all in in your marriage, you've got to fight for each other and you've got to fight through the hard times.

Man, you could drop the mic on that. These mics are really expensive, though, so don't. But that's a mic drop. Boom. But it's so true. It is the true that when you work through it together, the strength that comes, the perseverance that comes, it really is incredible. And so imagine how much stronger your marriage could be if your spouse knew and you knew the same about them, that you were both in it no matter what. Like, that there is nothing that could come that could ever, ever shake you to the point of falling apart, that you were always going to grow through it together. And life is going to throw struggles your way. And you don't usually get to determine ahead of time what those struggles are going to be, but you can determine ahead of time to decide what kind of stories those struggles are going to become. Because every struggle in your life in the past just makes a future story. It's part of your testimony. So is it going to be a story about how you grew stronger in your faith, how you grew more committed to one another, how you grew stronger in your relationship with one another, or is it going to be a story about why you gave up? You get to decide what that story is going to be. And so just decide ahead of time, no matter what the challenge is that comes. Our story's going to be about perseverance. Our story is going to be about faith and about commitment. And that's going to be part of the legacy that our marriage is about and part of the legacy we pass down to our children and future generations in a world where there's so much giving up. You know, let our story be one that's about commitment and love as well. That it's not just. Even though love itself is commitment, it's not just we're trying to last this out like it's a prison sentence, but we're growing even more in love and more. More tenderhearted toward one another through every season of marriage. And you really, really can. That's what God wants for you. That's what he wants in your relationship with him as you grow in your love for him. But it's also what he wants in your relationship with one another. It's not just something to survive. No, it's something to thrive in and grow in through every single season of marriage.

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Visit burlington.com coats for details. You know, I know we talked about kind of that butterfly in the chrysalis getting stronger muscles to be able to fly in marriage. I think it's our heart. I mean, it really is. The heart is a muscle, but when it comes to marriage, it's like keeping that heart of flesh. And the Bible talks about having a heart of flesh and not having a hardened. And I think sometimes when we don't fight for each other, when we're not all in, when we're kind of like what Dave was talking about, where one fit's kind of in the door, one fits out the door. You know, we start to grow these hardened hearts because we're only thinking of ourselves and kind of how to protect ourselves. But when we step all the way into that marriage, you would be amazed at how soft your heart can be. And how much it can grow and how that love can grow and how it's gonna go through different seasons. Like every marriage goes through hard seasons and different seasons and highs and lows, and you learn so much in those seasons. But, you know, when you are all in and you truly have this partner by your side, seeing you through the good, the bad, and the ugly, it's just such a beautiful thing. And, you know, we talk all the time about how your spouse should be your best friend. And in marriage, it's even better than a best friend, you know, because you're. You're just doing every part of your life together, and it's. It's just awesome.

Yeah. So don't settle for anything less is what we're saying. Don't be one of the many who just kind of go through the motions and they're only halfway in their marriage because you don't even know what you're missing. But your spouse needs and deserves you to be all in. You need and deserve the same from them. And so if you feel like you're holding back, let this whole conversation, if nothing else, just be a starting point for you and your spouse to start having that conversation to be like, I feel like we're not living all in with this marriage, and so what would it look like if we were? What would change and how can we get there and just be open to those conversations? And I think you will be surprised and greatly pleased by the end result as both of you take steps in that direction. So, yeah, we could keep talking about this all day, but it is time to transition to my favorite part of the podcast, the Q and A. Q and A. And we love the questions you guys send in. We love the ones you write us on social media, too, and continue to do that. You can find Dave and Ashley Willis or our marriage page on Facebook, Instagram. We'd love to connect with you there. But if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com you can submit a question that has a chance of being read on air, like this one. I've realized I have a tendency to speak to my husband with the wrong tone when I ask for help around the house, remind him of his responsibilities. I know I can come off as a nag or sound like a mother rather than a wife. I don't want that for our marriage. But I don't know how to approach him without sounding like that when he's repetitively avoiding responsibilities or does things on, quote, his time, which could take days or weeks or longer to get done how can I ask him? How can I ask help from him or remind my husband of his responsibilities that he's avoiding in a way that sounds like a wife and a teammate, not his mom?

That's a great question. And you know, I think, gosh, any of us can kind of fall into this dynamic, especially when we feel like things aren't being accomplished. And if you are a task oriented person too, like, if that is your love language, like Dave, like, I mean, he's an act of service guy. I mean, he really likes it when stuff gets done and in a timely fashion. And so I think that this wife writing this, that's kind of where she is. And it's a frustrating point, but she also recognizes kind of her own tendency to sound like that. And, you know, we have entire episodes on this.

There's a podcast entitled who's yous Daddy? Which some people might have skipped, thinking it's like a kinky sex episode.

Not kinky.

It's not about that at all. It's actually about that parent child dynamic within marriage. When one spouse feels like that they're becoming like a father, mother, nagging or correcting the spouse instead of a partner. Or if you feel like your spouse is doing that. So that's one aspect of what you're describing here, is you feel like that things have fallen into that dynamic. And that's not saying that that's your fault or his fault. That's just part of the dynamic that things have fallen into. I would recommend that whole episode where we spend 25 minutes talking about nothing else but all the different aspects that can lead to that and how to work your way out of it.

No, it's a great one. We kind of go in depth there. But I would say this praise behavior is repeated behavior, and that's for adults and for kids. And I think sometimes we forget that, that it works for adults too. I mean, think about it. When somebody tells you, good job, don't you want to do that thing again because it feels good and you want to keep on doing those things? And so I would just ask you as his wife, when was the last time that you just thanked him for whatever random thing he's done? Okay. And who he is as a man? Because I think that maybe it's coming off more, more nagging and he's delaying a little bit because he feels like, well, she's not really noticing what I'm doing. And I mean, maybe that's not the dynamic at all, but I'm just kind of sensing that. And I would say, too, that, you know, when you ask him, just give him the time to do it. I think sometimes we just have to realize that people don't always. And our spouse doesn't always do things as quickly as we like him or her to do them. And so I think sometimes we just have to be a little more patient and see what happens. I mean, sometimes, too, maybe it's not that he's trying to delay. Maybe he just forgot. Like, maybe you guys are both in a busy season and he forgot. And so just. I think that the main thing when it comes to that tone of nagging is giving him the benefit of the doubt and just saying, like, hey, sweetie, babe, whatever you call each other, whatever endearing term you guys call each other, you know, just say, like, have you. Have you done that yet? You know, and if he says no and he kind of rolls his eyes, be like, hey, no big deal. Just. Just wondered if you did it. Just reminding and just taking the pressure off. I think taking the pressure off will kind of relieve some of this pressure that you're feeling and that he's feeling.

Yeah, that's really good. And what Ashley said about gratitude, about showing each other, you know, thanks instead of just pointing out. Because for everybody I know, speaking as a man, we gravitate to things where we feel like we're winning, you know, whatever we feel like we're good at and we'll receive praise for and that we're winning at is what we'll naturally gravitate to. And so if he feels like he's always losing in this area because he's not. Not meeting the standard that you have or the timetable you have, then he'll actually subconsciously pull away even more. Not because he's trying to disrespect you, but because, again, his natural tendency is going to be to gravitate to where he's winning and where he can be seen as strong in your eyes. And this is an area where he, right now feels like he's seen as weak in your eyes or inadequate. And so, yes, he does need to step up and do spot around the house. So, buddy, listen, help out, be a partner. Don't be dead weight. But to the wife, just try to be that encourager as well. Try that approach. And again, check out the episode where we talk about nothing else but this dynamic in different ways. And again, that's episode 75. And you can find that who's yous Daddy episode, episode 75. Wherever you listen to the Naked Marriage podcast on iTunes, Stitcher Spotify, Google Play, Podbean, a bunch of places. I've never heard of YouTube, so you can check it out there. And we hope that that's an encouragement to you guys. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you for letting us be a part of your day today. Thank you for investing in your marriage. Thanks for leaving reviews and subscribing and all those things you do to motivate us. We really appreciate you.

We do. And we will see you next time.