How to Experience Great Intimacy and Love in Your Marriage (Part 1) - Dave & Ashley Willis

Another posture marriage can have is when you're in these two individual seats, you know you're not the same place. You know it's his and hers. And from this distance, it's so easy to get disconnected, to blame each other, to not lean in, to not connect intimately. And so many couples are in this dynamic. And so the whole goal is like, let's get in that love seat together. Which means we're united physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Welcome to the Focus on the Family broadcast. Helping you and your family thrive in Christ. Today on Focus on the Family, we'll explore how husbands and wives can experience greater vulnerability and intimacy and love in marriage. Thanks for joining us. Your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly. And I'm John Fuller.

John, I can already hear people going, feelings, oh, no. And they're like, let's go listen to some music right now. But it's true. And this is an area for me that's really difficult. I think when Jean and I talk about this, being an orphan kid, I learned to kind of just put it in a suitcase and deal with it. Right. So there's those moments where she's going, I need your heart in this discussion, and I gotta go find it. Sometimes that's hard to do. It's just, life can be easier if you just lock it away and just get up and do the day and be done with it. I think men tend to lean in that direction. We compartmentalize so many things. That's why we're good at battle. We come back like the guys did from World War II and never talked about it. We can do that. Women. No, they want to talk about it. They're, you know, fully integrated. They're two halves of their brains. And we end up, you know, being a little isolated. So today we're going to. We're going to get into it because it'll make your relationship better. This is as much for me as it is for you.

Yeah.

And we're going to be covering unconditional love, which is something I don't know, Jim. I struggle with this. I'm not. I want to love my wife unconditionally, but I put stipulations and causes, and I'm just a human, a selfish guy. And I'm trying, but it's hard.

Sounds like rules and regulations.

You are going to bring up the firstborn thing.

Okay, I'm not going to say it.

All right. Well, no couple loves each other perfectly, and that's the promise for today's show. And our guests are Dave and Ashley Willis. They've been here a number of times and we're so glad to have them back. Dave and Ashley are authors and speakers and co founders of strongmarriage.org and they host the Naked Marriage podcast. And since 2018, they've been part of the EXO Marriage Ministry. They've written a number of books and we're going to be covering the content of two in particular today. A wife's edition and a husband's edition of Seven Days to a Naked Marriage. And we've got those two books bundled here at the ministry. The details are in the show notes.

Well, Dave and Ashley, welcome back.

Thank you.

Hey, guys, it's great to be back.

It's good to have you here. It's just like we're talking as old friends, right? Yes. And that's so good, man. Let's start with your love story. It's always fun to do that. You guys are so vulnerable and so open with both the highlights of that and the low lights of that. How did you meet and when did you know you were going to get married? Was it like love at first sight?

Well, it kind of was for me. I mean, typical male, you know, it took her, maybe took her longer. I don't know.

I was pretty quick.

When she walked in, it was her very first day of college and I was a junior. I was a couple years ahead and. And she walked into class one day and I don't even know if she saw me or knew I existed, but she was laughing and talking and just lit up the room. And I thought, I've got to get to know her.

You said you noticed me because I was wearing a hat. I'm a big time person.

I've noticed a lot more than the hat, but.

Yeah, but I was wearing this fisherman's hat that's really popular in the late 90s, early 2000s. And we chatted it up that whole semester. We were just kind of acquaintances, kind of friends. And then you ended up asking me to your fraternity formal and. And we went to each other's like, we went to some dances together and really got to know each other. And very quickly. I mean, we, we really. I just felt like we both, we started talking marriage pretty quickly, wouldn't you say?

Wow, that's good, though.

Yeah.

Yeah. I knew I had to, like, I had to seal this deal before she realized how much better she could do.

Oh, my goodness.

Like, she's out of my league. I've got to make sure that you.

Are laying the plane here. That's so true.

We just knew. I mean, we.

We did.

We knew, like, we wanted to be together, and of course, we had a lot to learn, but we knew we wanted to figure it out together. We wanted to be husband and wife. And so we got engaged pretty quickly.

It's always a little bit of an awkward moment when that, you know, it can be. And, you know, you don't want to make the assumption, because that's not good. And then you wanted to get the point across. That, man, I'm really interested. So it's always that struggle of, where's that line? Gene and I had that. I mean, we knew. Both of us, I think knew. But it took us. This is kind of funny. It took us, like, six months.

Yeah. Yeah.

To get to the point of going, do you think. Do you think. Right.

No.

Right.

And you don't have to fill in the blank. She knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Me telling her I love her for the first time was one of you. The most awkward moments of my life because I was so nervous. Right. And so she was like, what are you thinking? I wanted to say it, but I couldn't get it out. I'm like, I was just, you know, I was thinking, like. You know, like, I was just thinking, and that I am.

He literally did this.

It went on.

It's like a TV show.

It was. She was just smiling, waiting for it. I was like, I love. You know, I.

You didn't even say that.

I really. I think that I love. And before I could even get it out, she said, I love you, too.

I did. Oh, that's. I saw his eyes, and I said, she rescued me. I said, sweetie, I love you, too.

Well, you know. And then you were like, there's so much in that transaction, because, guys, we do not like to fail, and we don't want to go out on a limb unless we have an assurance that we're going to win. So that's why I think guys hesitate. Like, I'm not quite sure I'm getting the right vibe from you. So that's why you got to finish the sentence for us.

Thank you, my love. Thank you.

Do you think she's been rescuing me ever since? Let me ask you about this. You have a quote that you like, and it says, love is not enough for a marriage to work. I mean, I understand it, but come on. Isn't love enough?

Well, I mean, love in the world's definition, like, is the world's definition of love is really so superficial, you know, it's kind of this something we derive from love songs and Hallmark movies and where it's this picture of love where it's always going to be easy. If you marry the right person, you're always going to have these feelings. You're never going to struggle, it's never going to take real work. But real marriage takes a lot more than that. I mean, it takes a commitment to each other, even on the days when maybe you struggle to like each other in that moment because you're so committed to each other. And it's rooted in action. And that's the way God loves us, with a committed love that's rooted in action. And we've got to love each other that way. So I think we've got to just break free from the world's very shallow definition of love to what God has in store and in mind for marriage, which is it's selfless, it's sacrificial at times it's going to take work, but it's so worth it.

I was thinking about the transactional nature of that. You think of the world, and now psychology has shown that basically, love defined by the world, that infatuation, it lasts about two years. And it's kind of like God's sense of humor to say, okay, I'm going to give you a dose of dopamine in your brain. You're going to have this infatuation. Because if you didn't, it probably would never. We'd never have children. I mean, I'm thinking, okay, Lord, what are you thinking? But that's true. I mean, he does in the way he created us. He gives us this, like, you could do nothing wrong. And then that wears off. And then the hard work of marriage starts. You're doing everything wrong. Well, I didn't think it was me. I thought it was you. Blah, blah, blah, blah. You know how that all goes. We mentioned your books, Seven Days to a Naked Marriage. And I guess the question is, hey, how'd you come up with that title? Everybody's going, did I just hear that correctly? And then, you know, it's talking about a bouquet of intimacy, if I could say it that way, emotional.

That's going to be our next book.

First for some of those folks that are going, what?

What?

What? They use the word naked.

God uses the word naked.

What?

Yeah.

Where?

Hey, Genesis. Genesis.

Okay, give it to me.

Well, in Genesis 2, it talks about Adam and Eve, the very first married couple, being naked and unashamed. And that's really where having a naked marriage comes from. It's being Naked? Yes, physically, that's a part of it and that's an awesome part of it. But that's not the only part. We gotta be naked physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. And basically it means being vulnerable. Being vulnerable, you know, showing everything, really being known and fully knowing your spouse. I mean, that's really the goal. And that's when you get that grit that you're talking about that we don't tend to have, you know, in those first two years where we're going off the dopamine we had from the infatuation. But when, you know, everything really gets, you know, the reality hits that like, oh my gosh, we're imperfect people and we have to work things out. And I don't like every little thing you do. Like there's things that annoy me and I need to work through that. You know, that's where we have to get that grit to work through all those things. And we get that by being honest and by loving through those hard times and not letting it be this conditional, kind of willy nilly, if I'm not feeling it, I'm not going to be here for you kind of love.

Well, I think even, you know, we're kind of giggling and laughing about the title and all that. But there is a deep problem in the church. I mean, even some people listening, and I get it, everybody, there's a certain, I don't know if it's false prudishness about it, but that the Lord created us naked and unashamed, like we were just there, we didn't know any better, right? Adam and Eve, this is who we are, you made us, everything's good. And then sin enters into humanity and all of a sudden we're covered and ashamed and we still live that way. Even if I can say it, even in the Christian community, marriages live in that place of COVID up and shame.

But they don't have to. As the good news, we get back to God's original design and by his grace and we can get back to that place of being naked and unashamed where, yeah, we still have flaws. Nakedness is that picture of vulnerability, whether it's physical or emotional. It says like, this is me, I got a warts and all, scars and all. And I see you and your scars too. But I accept you just the way you are. You accept me just the way that I am. And, and there's such an intimate connection that happens when you can be fully known and fully loved by someone. And God fully knows us and fully loves us, so he went first. I mean, he went first with showing us what that looks like. But in marriage, we can get back to that place. So it's heartbreaking for us when we see couples that are hiding from each other, hiding certain things because they're robbing themselves of that deep, wonderful, intimate connection that God designed them to have.

You did premarital counseling, by the way. That is critically important. Again, we lean on a lot of research here at Focus. I think that's one reason, hopefully you trust what we have to say, the resources that we produce, et cetera. But the minimum number of hours, if you can receive 10 hours of premarital counseling, your likelihood of staying together is quite high. It's in the, I think the 90 something percentile range for 10 hours of counseling. Now, we, Jean and I, we saw that we had probably 12 couples in our premarital counseling. I think three walked out saying, we're not ready for this. That's good.

But that's a good thing, right?

That's a good thing. I mean, that they were. It caught their attention. We are not either meant for each other or, you know, we need to do some work. So how was your premarital counseling and did you guys go in going, we are so much alike?

Yeah, we totally did this. We'll go through the motions. We get a discount on our wedding license if we check this off the box, but.

Oh, my goodness, no.

But we learned a lot and it challenged us and it was a wake up call. It helped us. We're not nearly as, as good as we think.

No, but we really did. We thought even with, like, relationships, like, we were like, oh, even in marriage, like, we got this. Like, we majored in communication. Like, we got this. And they did this exercise with us where basically they had us each say something and the other could not talk when the others, like when the sponsor was talking, telling a story, and it was like in a minute or something, and we're supposed to listen intently and then when they're finished, we're supposed to say, what I hearing you say is. Then we would say what we thought we were hearing them say. And we both did this and we both really got it wrong. Like, because I think what we were doing instead of actually listening, we were thinking about how good we are at this and what we were going to say back. And we were assuming we knew what they were going to say because that's what we tend to do. Like, well, I hear the beginning of this and I'm just assuming I know the rest of the story. And right then and there, it was like, it was a wake up call to us. Like, man, we have a lot of work to do in this communication thing. And that it's not something that you just arrive at, like, in, in life. It's a journey. Like, you're always learning about each other. You always need to be a good listener and not just think about your response, like, really listen to your spouse. And so we've, we've worked on that, you know, for 22 years. We're, you know, we're still learning.

How's that going, Dave?

Yeah, it's.

It's a lot better than it was.

Better than it was. I'm a worker.

Answer that question.

How do you feel like it's going? I concur.

I have that problem where I finish. People are going to go, you are kidding me. But I'll tend to. If Gene's kind of taking a little while to put the noun at the end of the sentence, I'll offer three or four.

You're like the Google auto. You start typing it in.

It's so good. She likes. She'll look at me and say, can I finish my sentence?

Yes, I'm still doing it.

We've been married 37 years. I think it's a little lower volume, but it's like this thing I can't get rid of. And that's what you're talking about. That's not. See, I interpret good listening skills as finishing someone's sentence. I'm really listening to you, in fact, so intently I can finish what you're gonna say.

Right, right.

They don't think so.

Exactly.

She doesn't think so.

Exactly. No. And I've done that for Dave. Like, there's been several times where I'm like, I'll insert something. And he's like, no, that is not.

Like, I'm gonna go get a sandwich, go for a run, go to loaf. Like, no, I'm going to go to.

Take this multiple choice thing. Just let me say it.

Exactly.

That's the benefit of premarital counseling, is to learn. Oh, we have a tendency maybe to do that.

Yes, exactly.

And I'm glad you're listening to Focus on the Family today with Jim Daly. Because we're talking about marriage and some of the foibles, some of the challenges we all experience. Dave and Ashley Willis are our guests, and they have written and spoken about marriage a lot, and they're sharing a lot of their own personal experiences with us today. They've captured a lot of the content that we're talking about in a couple of books. There's a wife's edition and a husband's edition of Seven Days to a Naked Marriage. This is a great day by day guide to developing intimacy. And we've got this bundle of books for you. The show notes have all the details.

Dave, one obstacle to the vulnerability of marriage is something you call emotional sunburn. Now, being a fair skinned Irish guy, I'm connecting with you. I have had plenty of sunburns in my life and now I go to the dermatologist quite regularly. But what does that mean, emotional sunburn?

Yeah. So like when our family would go to the beach, we noticed that none of us were applying sunscreen effectively and we were all pretty fair skinned. And so by the time we get back home at the end of the night, everybody was sore, needing aloe and just in a bad mood.

Why did we go then?

Why did we do that?

That was horrible.

And I would notice that if someone would come and just tap my back like, hey, Dave, how was your day? And they'd pat me on the back, I'd want to punch them in the face, right. Because they touched a place where I was wounded. It had nothing to do with anything they did wrong. There was just under my shirt, there was this wound that they could not see. And in marriage, I think we all kind of carry to some level these invisible emotional sunburns that over time, you know, our hearts have been wounded by different things. Maybe we've even wounded one another. These wounds can be invisible. And yet when our spouse in close proximity to us just says something or just kind of touches us a certain way, it might evoke this irrational emotional response that surprises them and makes them think that they've done something terribly wrong. When really it's just the defense mechanism that we build up to protect our own wound. And so in marriage, you've got to become experts in navigating each other's woundedness and not lashing out in your own woundedness, because it's something that all of us are prone to do. When we're hurt, we tend to lash out and cause further damage. But in marriage, we have to take a step back, even in our pain sometimes and lean in and really work through the process together.

Okay, I'll stick with the analogy of the sunburn. So what's the aloe? What do you put on that soothes that pain?

That's a great question. I think that the aloe is a combination of listening, of tenderness, of compassion, of encouraging words, of just serving one another and depending on your spouse's temperament, their personality, the level of the woundedness, their own individual kind of love, language, all those things, that aloe might look a little bit different, but for all of us, it's going to require a lot of tenderness and time.

Well, and I think one of the challenges you have there is that typically an external treatment, meaning your spouse provides it. If you have those wounds, it's hard for you to provide it for yourself. But when your spouse is able to soothe you, that's a good thing.

And really, we also have to lean into the Lord on our own, of course. So, like, our spouse has to be part of that process. But your woundedness is something you need to take first to Jesus and find that healing in him and then let your spouse be part of that process. Don't shut them out from it. Don't push them away.

Another aspect of the book, and again, these are companion books you use, actually, the marital vows. We haven't really said that one is to love and cherish. Dave, I understand you like to illustrate this vow with living room furniture. I'm not sure that sounds really romantic, by the way.

It is. Yeah.

Connect the dots for me.

Yes.

Yeah. Well, I'm a visual learner, right. So if I can, like, see something, I just kind of understand the concept more. And so in one of the a talk we did at a marriage conference, we had some furniture on stage. There was a love seat in the middle and two individual chairs next to the love seat.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah, I know where this is. Off to a good start, right? Yeah. So the love seat we would sit in, and we say, okay, now, this represents, you know, it's an actual love seat, but it represents, you know, love. Where love should live in your marriage, where you're united, you're here together. But another posture marriage can have is when you're in these two individual seats, you know, you're not. You're not the same place. You know, it's his and hers. And from this distance, it's so easy to get disconnected, to blame each other, to not lean in, to not connect intimately. And so many couples are in this dynamic. And so the whole goal is like, let's get in that love seat together, which means we're united physically, emotionally, spiritually, and we're together. You know, our proximity is near one another, both physically and emotionally. And if you're not there, if you feel that distance, then work actively to figure out where the distance started. And then how do we get back together? How do we write this course and get back in the same place again.

Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, Ashley, you've been really vulnerable in the writing of these, and even when we've been here at the studio talking, you guys are refreshingly open about your shortcomings, which is great. That's what we attach to. Because when we're honest, we got similar ones, if not the exact same ones. You don't always feel lovingly or inviting toward Dave, especially when you've been dealing with children all day long. That's completely understandable. What advice do you have for wives? Mothers who struggle to cherish their husbands because they're not that cherishable. So I guess the quid pro quo there is A, do we have to earn that cherished spot? And if so, how do we do that? And then B, how does a woman show that kind of cherishedness toward her husband, if that's a word.

Yeah, no, I love that question, because I do. Especially when we are in the thick of raising children, we can get so kind of focused on the kids that we get frustrated when our husband actually needs something. Like when our husband comes to us and is like, hey, you want to have some intimate time together? Or, hey, do you want to go on a date? It feels like another thing on the list. And so what I would say.

So when you say, are you serious? That's really not a good response, right?

Probably not. But, I mean, I totally get the sentiment of it, and I've probably said it before myself, because I do. I think we feel like there's all these plates we're keeping spinning these. All these things we're trying to, you know, take off the list or whatever. But I think that we. We can't see our husband in our relationship with our husband that way. I mean, this is the. The one that we have pledged to live our whole life with, that it's our best friend. And so we have to. To not see him as another thing on our list and really make intentional time for him to really spend that time and. And talk to him. And I mean, that. That may look like putting the. To bed earlier than you normally would so that you can have an actual conversation.

Four o', clock, bedtime.

I know. And the kids. I will just say the kids aren't going to like it. The kids are going to, like, an hour earlier bedtime. But that's okay. I mean, you're the parents. You got to set those rules and just have that time and even just, you know, making sure that there's room in your day for your spouse. And I would encourage husbands, too, especially in the thick of raising kids. Like, don't let everything fall on your wife. You guys are partners. You're in this together. Make sure that you're communicating well, and assume the best of each other. Assume the best that he didn't know that you expected him to do that, or she did not know that you had put that on the calendar. Like, just go and communicate and say, listen, I would like more time with you. And if you go from the heart, I mean, that's how you cherish each other, is really getting to the heart of things and that you want to have that time together.

Ashley, one thing I want to recognize for wives and mothers right now is that as you were talking, it hit me, everybody's pulling on you.

Yes.

And I can get that. Because typically, in that busy season, you're not, as the wife, initiating intimacy. And you feel like, I've got the kids pulling on me. Now I got my husband pulling on me. It's pour out, pour out. Give, give, give, give, give. Who's filling my tank? Just describe that. And then what can we do as husbands to help fill that tank up in a way that feels true and not motivationally true and not motivated by some other underlying desire.

Exactly. No, in that you just hit the nail on the head. I think that that is when wives feel like, oh, he's only doing this because he knows we're gonna have special time together later. It can feel inauthentic. And so I would say, yes, I agree with you. I mean, I remember those times. My kids are a little older now, but I remember feeling like, man, literally. Like, literally and figuratively, everything and everyone pulling at me. And it just felt like, gosh, can I just have a moment to myself? You know? And I would say, as a husband, what you can do is help. Help give your wife that moment to herself. Like, I remember just a little example when we had. We had several small children in our house, and we were at a new place, and I was trying to get kind of, you know, into the community, and I had this girl come up to me at church and said, hey, Ashley, I heard it used to be a dancer. Well, we have a dance team at our church, and it's kind of a small group, too. We pray together. We do life together. Would you like to come? And I'm like, well, yes, I would love to come. When do you meet? And she was like, Tuesdays at 7 or whatever. And immediately I thought, I have too much on me. I can't do that. And I later on in the day was talking to Dave about it and was like, he was like, how was your day? You know? And I was like, oh, well, Sarah came up to me and told me that the church has a dance team. Isn't that just so cool? They celebrate the arts, man. I would just love to be part of that. It's just too bad I can't. And he stopped me right there and said, no, no, no, when is it? And I was like, Tuesdays at 7. And he goes, I will rearrange my schedule. We're giving you Tuesdays at 7. And it was like every week having small children. And at the time I was staying at home. So it was like I was at home all day with kids, which is awesome. And I loved it. But to be able to go and be with people who love the Lord, who love to dance, who want to pray with me and do life with me, it literally just was. It was like wind, fresh wind to me. And so I would just encourage husbands. It may not be a dance team for your wife, but like, find a way to give her that time. And then I'm telling you, when she sees you being intentional about giving her that time, it naturally she feels cherished and she's going to lean in more to you because she knows you're trying to be a true partner.

Well, this has been great. I mean, I think people are getting the vibe that this is good material. And you know, again, everything rests on the foundation of the Lord and that's what's so good. And you know, it's obvious when you read the Word and pray and the Lord gives you the insights how this should roll. We still struggle with that even as Christians. But you've done a great job with Days to a Naked Marriage, the guys edition, and the girls edition. And I hope you're feeling it. So thank you for being with us. Thank you for having us for the folks. I mean, again, we're trying to put a good meal in front of you every day that we're in the studio and give you a resource and some thoughts and ideas that make your marriage better. And this is one of those resources we believe in. So get in touch with us. If you can help us in ministry. Let's do this together. Help other couples find a better place. Make a gift of any amount. If you could do it monthly, that's great. A one time gift is fine. We'll send you copies of these books as our way of saying thank you for being a partner in Ministry.

Donate today as you can. And Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family. Or stop by the Show Notes where we've got details for you to contribute and also to get these books. Again, the title is Seven Days to a Naked Marriage. There's a wife's edition and a husband's edition. And by the way, when you're online, be sure to look for our free marriage assessment. Over a million people have taken this. It's a tremendous resource. If you invest 5, 10, maybe 15 minutes into taking this as a couple, you're gonna have hours of conversation afterwards about all the things that this assessment brings to the fore, the good and maybe the improvement points as well. Look for that marriage assessment online. We'll link to it in the Show Notes as well.

Dave and Ashley, again, thanks for being with us. Let's come back next time and keep exploring this great topic. Can we do that?

Oh, I'd love it.

Yeah.

Thank you for having us.

We hope you can join us then. For now, on behalf of Jim Dailey and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for being here for Focus on the Family as we help you and your family thrive in Christ.