My Spouse Won't Leave & Cleave

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Welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast. We're Dave and Ashley Willis. On this podcast, we address the truth about sex, sex, intimacy and lifelong love. If you're listening to this in real time, Christmas is around the corner. It's in the air. You know, we've got some great past episodes on Christmas gifts for your spouse and all that stuff, but just do something thoughtful. You know, just do something thoughtful for each other. In this episode, we're continuing talking about help my spouse is. And this one is help my spouse is not leaving and cleaving. What is leaving and cleaving? It's something God commands us to do once we marry, to kind of break off from our family of origin to create a new family with our spouse. It doesn't mean we totally disown our family. We continue to honor them and build a relationship with them. But our first priority, our most important human relationship, becomes our spouse the moment we get married. So many marriages don't embrace this. They don't understand it. And because of that, they have unhealthy, codependent relationships with families they have tension with in laws. We have a brand new book called Married into the Family, the Not so Secret Guide to In Law Relationships. And I think every couple could benefit from this book. It's part of our own testimony. Early in our marriage, we struggled with this. Our families struggled with this. 22 years later, things are great, healthy. But there were several years where it was tense and just painful, frankly. And so this book is to help those who maybe find themselves in a painful place. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

It is. And just to kind of, you know, set the mood, set the tone for kind of what this feels like when we feel like our spouse isn't leaving and cleaving. I want to share a quote from the book of a real person named Maggie P. Who's been married for 22 years. It says this. My husband wasn't fully committed to me in the early years of our marriage. And there was another woman more important to him. His unfaithfulness to me wasn't the result of a mistress or any sexual form of infidelity. He was more committed to his mother's happiness than his wife's happiness. He wanted his parents to see him more as a good son than as a good husband. It was a frustrating season, but eventually he came to see God's design for marriage and began to put me first. Now we have a great marriage. Ironically, he even has a much healthier relationship with his mom now that clearer boundaries are in place. We almost didn't survive those early years. Until a couple truly learns what it means to leave and cleave, they'll never experience true intimacy and oneness in marriage. And, I mean, we 100% relate to Maggie's sentiments. And really, that was our journey, too. It just took some time to understand how to have a biblical marriage. And I think a lot of us, you know, we just. We get so excited about planning the wedding and really enthralled and wrapped up in all of that that all parties involved, not just the husband and wife, but their families of origin, like, forget, like, oh, there's a real marriage happening here. There's a new family being made here. You know, yes, we don't. We don't forget our roots like we have. We are an extended family, but we are also our own new autonomous family. And sometimes I feel like, you know, we all forget that, you know, whether it's the husband and wife or their family. And so we want to talk about, like, what does it really mean to leave and cleave on page 25 in our book? Or if you're listening to the audiobook, this is also, I believe, in the first chapter. Yeah, chapter one. It talks specifically about kind of what we do to leave and cleave and, like, where this comes from. So I'm just gonna read a little snippet of this, and then we'll really get into it more. But it says, number one, you know, we have to. We have to take three distinct steps. And number one is you have to leave your family of origin. Okay, what do we mean by leave? So I'm just gonna read this straight from the book. It says God does not expect us to abandon our families, cut all ties with them, or lose our individual personalities. However, we must break from our parents authority, structure, and often the physical location from the time we were single to make room for our own new family. The word cleave comes from the Hebrew word baka, which means to leave, break open, or through. Although we each have. We each have been rooted in our original families, when we join our spouse in holy matrimony, we consciously choose to break off from our original roots and replant a combined root in new soil with our new spouse. We stay rooted in God. It is a beautiful new planting, but it must also be a major adjustment because we are uprooting, rooting ourselves and entering a new environment, a new garden where we can learn how to thrive together with a new partner with God's help. Ideally, our family and community will support this new life with a new spouse. However, when our family of origin doesn't understand this concept or feels threatened by the process, it can feel like part of our root system has been left behind. It is then that we feel pulled up or I'm sorry, we feel pulled at. Both. Pulled at by both sides until our roots begin to fray, get thinner and thinner, and eventually snap. For various reasons, many individuals are never able to fully complete this first step in the three step process. And as a result, they never experience the deep intimacy marriage, the deep intimate marriage that they are designed to have.

Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's it. I mean, that's it.

Yeah. You want to talk about number two?

Number two?

Yes.

Let me put on my old man glasses.

They're not old man glasses. If you're watching on YouTube, they are some snazzy, sexy glasses. I like it.

Might have to hit pause for a make out break. All right, number two. Join and unite together. Are you familiar with the phrase leave and cleave? The original Hebrew word for this action is dabak. It is related, but carries a different meaning than baka. Dabak describes the process of clinging together. It means to catch by pursuit, abide fast, cleave, hold fast together, follow close hard after. To be joined together, to keep. We imagine this like our two root systems being planted together, intertwining and growing stronger to the point of being nearly impossible to separate. This process requires nakedness physically, mentally and emotionally. Having sex is an important part of this process. But cleaving consists of more than just simply making love. It is a letting go of everything else in your life so that you can hold on completely to each other. This process requires faith and complete commitment. It is the deliberate act of letting go of every other earthly bond so you will be able to embrace your spouse completely and wholeheartedly with a level of intimacy and commitment above all other people or things.

That's right.

And number three. You wanna read number three?

Sure. I'll go for number three.

It's a throwback to the audiobook. We had so much fun recording this audiobook, by the way. The stories especially we added A few.

Little special things, too.

So the paperback has some really cool, like, printable resources for discussion guides, small group study and all that. So there's bonus with the paperback, the audiobook, though, I don't know, I just think it's fun and engaging. So maybe get both. How about that? It all supports the ministry anyway.

It does.

But I think this could be a great group study, just to give it a plug. We know a few groups that are already going through it together, which is exciting.

Hopefully it leads to a lot of breakthrough because that's the whole point, right? All right, number three again, to leave and cleave. Number three is embrace complete commitment and nakedness. God himself supernaturally completes this last step. He makes two individuals into, quote, one flesh. God creates a spiritual unity which mingles our very souls together. We still, of course, keep our individual identities, but now and for the rest of our lives, we're tied together with a bond of love only God could have orchestrated. That is marriage. That is real intimacy. It is what God intends for you and your spouse. Why do so many couples never experience that kind of supernatural intimacy? It is because they have not completed the first or second step in the process. The steps must take place in proper order. God is a God of order, and he is not going to jump to the third step before you have done the necessary work on the first two. You have to leave and you have to cleave. Until you do, you are essentially swimming upstream with one arm tied behind your back. You're not in full partnership with your spouse, and you're opening yourself up to all sorts of confusion and drama with your family and in laws. And I'm telling you, we share stories, story after story, just to kind of illustrate what this is like. And so there'll be solidarity in your own journey and kind of what it's like to have one or both of you who aren't willing to leave and cleave. And so, you know, again, that's from the book, but we want to talk about it, too. Like, what else would you add to this about that frustration? If one spouse has done these steps, like, has taken those first two steps on their own, like, they've been leaving and they're trying to cleave. I feel like for this question, you know, help my spouse is. We're stuck in number two. It's where one of them, they've left their family of origin and they're trying to cleave. But you can't fully cleave if the other person's tied to that other origin, he's not able to leave.

Right. And that is complicated. And we've lived it. Yeah, we have. And I think there are a lot of things that can cause it. There can be a codependent relationship between a parent and a child that was maybe unhealthy. It can happen for a number of reasons. It can happen just because of a misunderstanding of, of the way marriage is supposed to be. And maybe if that parent didn't have a really strong marriage themselves, a deep emotional connection to their spouse, they'll try to overcompensate with that by developing that spouse level emotional connection with the child.

Yep, a lot.

Which really can. Can put both that parent and the child in a predicament because it's sabotaging both their marriages at that point. And by God's design, that's not the way it's supposed to be. God wants you to have healthy relationships with your parents for life. But it's going to look very, very different once you're an adult, move out of the house, and then far more different once you get married and establish a family of your own. So if one spouse isn't really, totally willing to do that, I think that counseling could be needed. I think in the book we talk a lot about what we learn and some practical ways and biblical ways.

Well, and how to do this. We do go through how to do it.

How to do it. Yeah, but, but a short answer is talking to a counselor, an impartial trained third party, to sit down, to hear both sides and to say, listen, here's what's going on and here's what needs to happen. They need to be a Christian counselor, someone coming from a biblical worldview. We have an incredible team here at ExoMarriage. You can go to xomarriage.com help and schedule a call or an appointment with one of our trained mediators. And they are so gifted to just walk beside you and not to beat you over the head, not to, you know, make you feel foolish or silly for the predicament you're in, but to just encourage you and say, here, this is what God says. Here's how to get from where you are to where you want to be. And here's some things maybe you haven't considered and just realizing you don't have to figure this all out on your own. It's so encouraging. Counseling helped us a lot.

Oh, it helped us so much.

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Wow.

And I think because we were so young too, and we're the only ones of our friends really who were married at this time and just kind of like we don't know what to do. So that counseling, it gave us actual steps we could take. And you know, I think too some people are like, well, is that really worth the investment? Because it is. It's going to take a sacrifice on your part financially and a sacrifice of your time. And I would say yes, it's worth the effort. Because if you keep on coming back to this issue of you being willing to leave and cleaving your spouse, not really getting it, like feeling like I owe more allegiance to my family of origin than to my spouse and I, you know, they feel guilty for fully leaving and cleaving, then you're going to need a third party to speak into this because sometimes we just have to be knocked over the head with someone else revealing truth that maybe our spouse has already said, but we just need to hear that third party, impartial party, you know, saying like, yes, your spouse is right. This is how it needs to go. I don't know why we're so difficult that way as human beings, but it does help to have that professional to speak into it. And I know for us, you know, our counselor handed us the book Boundaries that was kind of and has been kind of the only book that really establishes how to handle some of this.

An inspiration for.

It's an inspiration for this. It's one of the resources we list in the back among many other resources. But, you know, it's important to establish boundaries and it's gonna happen slowly once your spouse realizes, yes, I need to take these three steps to leave and Cleave. And God's gonna help us in this. You know, you guys will be in a better place just in your marriage, but your family may not catch up for a while, and that's okay. These things take time, right? So we really have to kind of have that grit to press on, to keep on moving towards biblical marriage that we know God blesses and know that we're living a godly marriage. And when your family tries to inter and say, listen, I'm just trying to live a godly marriage, and this doesn't mean that you're out of my life, it just means your position is different. It doesn't. You know, it's just I'm not under your authority. I mean, you may not want to say it like that, but you do need to be honest. Like, don't shy away from establishing, like, we are our own family now and we love you, but in order to have a healthy marriage and also a healthy family dynamic, it can't look the same as it always has. And also be like, listen, you raised me well, and I want to have a thriving marriage, and this is how we can have a thriving marriage. And again, they may say, well, I, you know, I did all this for you. And how. I can't believe you're disrespecting me in this way. Because there's a lot of families out there that find themselves in this dynamic. And the one. There's usually one. It could be both parents or in laws, but usually it's one primary one who's used to getting their way. And they see respecting them as obeying them. Like, that's how they see respect. But when you are adult to adult, okay, it's not like that anymore.

No, it can't be.

I mean, it can't be. That's just not what God calls us to, you know, really, God is our ultimate authority. And then once we're married, you know, our spouse is our human priority, right? So we have God as our first priority and our ultimate authority. And then we're married, and that's our first priority as far as human relationships go. And then we have our children. Once we have children, and then our family. And so it's hard. It's hard for families who are used to really, you know, or a family member who's used to really call in the shots to get this, because it feels, you know, they may have been using you as a shield to deal with their own problems. You know what I'm saying? Or maybe you were the thing that they were holding onto too tightly and all of a sudden they have to let you go and they feel naked or they feel inadequate or they feel empty. And so it's important that we handle these conversations with compassion. But that doesn't mean we shy away from the honest conversation. But I think having grace, not matching their intensity, not going below the belt, so to speak, and using harsh language like they may use towards you, not trying to be manipulative like they may be towards you, but just reiterating God's truth and saying, listen, because I love you, because I want to have a relationship with you, because I want it to be healthy and lasting and I want us to be this, you know, awesome legacy of a multi generational family that glorifies God. It just has to change and change is hard. And even own that with your family members, say, listen, I know this is hard. It's hard for me. It's hard for me too. And I know it's hard for you and I just want you to know I love you, I appreciate you, thank you for raising me, thank you for all that you've done. But I have a wife now or I have a husband now. And I really want our relationship to be strong and biblically grounded.

Yeah. And that's God's design. Matthew 19:6. Jesus said, since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together. And that no one includes a mother, a father, an in law like no one, because God has made you one into the covenant of marriage and that's his design. And so you don't have to apologize for wanting to be unified, for wanting to do it God's way. We have, we have a responsibility and if someone in your family doesn't understand that, then you might have to just lovingly keep telling them then if they still don't get it, lovingly establish some boundaries and keep praying that God would do the rest and bring healing. So there's so much more in the book. Guys, we do encourage you to get this. I just think for all of us, for the relationships, family relationships a generation ahead of us, for those that are on the same wavelength, brothers and sisters in law, for those marrying into our family, this is so important for us to have a unified, strong, healthy family, multi generationally that respects the individual autonomy and sacredness of every marriage within that family. That's God's design. And it's difficult because people are messy, families are messy, none of us are perfect. But with God's grace and with the tools available to you, you can have it. Even if it seems like, man, you don't know my family. Any family can have it.

Yeah. You know, kind of. To end this conversation, I want to reveal another component of the book that I think is really great. And it's in the back of the book. It says some frequently asked questions. So these are, you know, because I know every family is unique, and, like, we're talking about kind of the. The bigger picture here, but I know there's more kind of nuanced situations where you're like, well, that's all fine and good, but, you know, this. And so I want to share this question. It says, my husband works for his parents in a family business. Family surrounds us constantly. Every part of our lives and our finances are, you know, tied to family. I feel like we do not have any privacy or independence. I wish my husband would take a different job, but he wants to take over the family business someday. Plus, if he quits, then it might cause some permanent damage to his relationship with his parents. What should we do? So this scenario, I mean, you can feel that because it's real life. It's like, how do we leave and cleave when literally there's never any physical or even financial space?

Yeah. We're so tied in.

We're so tied in. Exactly. And so here's what we have to say about that. It says working family. Working with family can be a blessing, but it can also create many complications. It is a beautiful legacy to create and grow a business that you can hand down to your children someday. But parents must hold loosely to this kind of dreams, because God's dreams for your children might be different from yours someday. We must each have the freedom to do what we feel is best for our own marriages and callings without fear of losing a parent's love or blessing because of our decisions. And we go into kind of the steps they need to take. So if that's you, I highly encourage you to get the book. This is on page 192. Or you can do the audiobook.

And there are so many other scenarios.

So many other questions and scenarios. So, again, you're gonna get the bigger picture, but you're also gonna get some specifics to your sit situation. And we really tried, along with the help of the EXO team, specifically John, who really.

Dr. John Anderson.

Dr. John Anderson. He's the head of EXO Publishing here. Just poured into. I mean, such a wealth of knowledge. Yes. And highly experienced in the publishing world and as an author and an editor and just overarching publishing guy. So with his help, I feel like this book is just very comprehensive. I really. It's the book we wish we would have had when we first got married. We just had no idea what we were getting into.

Exactly what we wish we would have had. We could, like, get in a time machine and give it to ourselves, which we can't. But we can do something even better. We can give it to you.

That's the best thing. We're all in this together, you know.

And I'm hoping that our kids will read it and if we start getting out of line when they get married.

That they can point to our own.

Book and say, mom and dad, look what you said here. You're not living up to it.

You know, hold us accountable.

But we hope that this book is a resource to you and as are all the. I was going to say episodes, but really episodes too, but I meant resources@xomarriage.com One other quick plug, guys. Our biggest event of the year is just around the corner, XO Conference in Grapevine, Texas, which is in the Dallas Fort Worth area. It's the weekend right before Valentine's Day. It would be a great Christmas gift for you to give that to your spouse and surprise them with some tickets. We will do a meet and greet. We'd love to meet you in person. We'll have 4,000 people there live in the auditorium and then people simulcasting from all over the world. It's my favorite weekend of the year. It is so much fun. We've got an incredible lineup and some great surprises planned this year. We would love to see you there. You can get more info@xomarriage.com conferences God bless, guys. We'll see you next time.