You're Not Alone

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Welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley, and on this podcast, we address the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. And today, we're talking about something that is so hard but so important to talk about, and that is how are you supposed to handle fighting for your marriage alone? So let's dive in.

I thank you guys for joining us on on this episode. This is a kind of a heavy topic, but we know a lot of folks are in this situation. But because we get a lot of messages, a lot of emails, and thank you for those of you who write us on Facebook or email us, letting us know what you're going through. It really helps us shape the episodes and the content that we put out because we want it to be relevant to where you are, that a lot of folks feel like they're fighting alone in their marriage. And what do we mean by that? We mean when you feel like you're working a lot harder than your spouse is working, and there could be a lot of reasons for that. We're going to dive into what some of those reasons could be. But we also want this to be an episode where you feel like you're given hope to keep going, but also given some very practical tools to know how to keep going when you feel alone in your marriage.

That's right. You know, when you're fighting alone, you do feel like you're the only one kind of bearing the burden. And, you know, we've talked about in previous episodes about the Bible verse about carrying each other's burdens. And so it can be heartbreaking when you feel like you're the only one who cares about your marriage. You know, you're fighting alone. When you feel like your spouse is on autopilot and they're not even tending to what's actually going on daily, and they're not really listening and they're not really engaging with you, and you feel like, I'm the only one who cares here. And it can be demeaning. It can feel very demeaning because for whatever reason, you know, whether they're saying cruel things to you or just ignoring you, which I think can almost be worse when there's this silent treatment and there's no. There's no connection, you Know, there in. In this period of your. Of your marriage, you can feel alone and frustrated and heartbroken. And, you know, I've often talked to wives going through this, and they will cry. I mean, it's one of those things where you feel desperate for help, but you don't know where to go because your spouse is kind of checked out. And that's a really hard place to be because you cannot change your spouse. And that's just the hard truth. And probably the hardest part of what we do in trying to encourage marriages is, you know, you can't change your spouse. But I will tell you that God can change your spouse.

Yes.

And there are things to do, and we serve a powerful God, a mighty God that still brings dead things to life. Even if you feel like your spouse is miles and miles away and they're never gonna turn around and connect with you again, I promise you, we serve a God that can change their heart. And I think it's important that we remember that we're not the ones to change them. But we do have a God who listens to our cries. He catches every tear. He knows the pain that we're in, and he wants our marriage to be restored. So I just wanna encour and let you know that he does hear your prayers. He sees how you're feeling and he is holding you right now. And he is the only one who can really fill that void, maybe that you're feeling. I think a lot of times too, when our spouse checks out, we have this major hole in our heart because we wanna connect with them, we love them, we vowed to be married to them for life, and suddenly they're acting like they could care less. It's just. It's a huge, huge blow to our. Our pride, to our wholeness as a person. And so it's in those moments that it's really important that we just turn to the Lord. And I think a lot of you listening, that's exactly what you're doing. That's why you're listening to this right now, is you want to turn to the Lord, you want to lean on the Lord. And I just. I encourage you to keep on focusing on him and know that he sees you and he loves you and he is the one who will fill your heart. And in the midst of that, in the midst of you grieving, what's going on in your marriage right now, in the midst of you still trying to fight for your marriage and really, you know, holding out hope, just know that God is the one doing your bidding. Like God is the one at work here, and he is the one who is ultimately able to change your spouse's heart and able to get them to reconnect.

Yeah, he wants to be there for you. The book of Psalms says, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. So God's always with us. He's always close to us, but there's a closeness and an intimacy we can experience with God unlike any other time. Then when we choose to lean on him in those moments when we feel broken or alone or frustrated. And if that's how you're feeling in your marriage right now, this is a very unique opportunity for you to lean into God like never before and experience the comfort that he can bring, the guidance that he can bring, the wholeness that he can bring to your wounded heart and that he will carry you through this.

Yes.

Regardless of how it plays out, he will carry you through this until that point where your spouse finally kind of comes back to their. Their senses, so to speak, and returns to you with their whole heart and the marriage can be restored and God is even with you fully and completely. If your spouse just continues to drift away and ultimately walks out the door altogether and you end up divorced regardless, just know that God is the one who really controls your destiny. It's not your spouse or anybody else. And he has good things for you no matter what. And so we want to talk about that. A question that we get sometimes is, what about when your spouse wants a divorce and is already out of the house? It's kind of a different level when you feel like you're alone in a marriage where you're both still going through the motions, you're both still under the same roof. And maybe your spouse is even okay with the current arrangement. Maybe they feel like nothing's wrong, and that's a difficult place to be. And we know couples like this. We know friends where the wife or the husband will say, like, I feel totally alone here. I feel like I'm carrying all this on my shoulders, and I feel so lonely. And yet I feel like I don't have a partner. I don't have a best friend. I don't have a spouse who cares for me and is committed the same way, the same level I am for them. And the other spouse is just kind of like, we're fine, we're fine. I mean, this is fine, you know, and that's a really difficult place. We want to talk about that, but we also want to talk about this other extreme where you guys are, you know, you're essentially separated, Right. And you're trying to fight to say, wait, come back. Let's do counseling. Let's do something. And the other spouse is just. They're like, I'm done. You know, and we're walking through this situation with some friends as well, where, you know, it can be the husband or the wife again, who's just like, I'm doing everything I can. I don't know. I don't know what they're thinking, but they are just. My spouse is just so determined to end this marriage, and I don't know what to do to try to save it. So let's start with the situation where you're in the same house, you're under the same roof, and it's just this one spouse feels like they're essentially working harder than the other one, right?

Yes. And that, tragically, is how a lot of people live where one spouse is really trying to engage. They're the ones praying. They're the ones wanting to do marriage conferences together. They wanna have a regular date night. But the other spouse is just kind of aloof about it. That's a really hard place to be. So I would encourage you in those moments, be really strategic about keeping in the word. Keep on praying. Because it's so easy to get angry and let anger really settle in. And that anger will turn to bitterness and rage even. And I've seen even that one thing where there's this little glimpse of hope, and then suddenly it's like time just kind of that anger settled in, and it turns into that bitterness and then rage, and just the rage alone ends up breaking up the marriage. So you have to be really rooted in the Lord in this, because, you know, you have every reason to be upset. You have every reason to feel frustrated and to feel like your spouse is letting you down, because they are. They're not engaging with you. You know, they might be in your house, but in every other way, they're just kind of doing whatever they want to do and not engaging in the marriage. And so you have every right to be upset, But I think it's very important that we direct our disappointment and direct that even that, you know, being upset and our crying out to God first, because he's the one who really tempers our hearts and helps us to really find the words to tell our spouse. This doesn't mean you don't need to go to your spouse and say, hey, I think things are not what they need to be. We certainly need to Say that. But how we say that is everything. Like, if we go to them and we are snapping at them and we're cutting them down and saying, you know, you're a loser and you're not even fighting for our marriage, and you never did this and that, and we just start listing off everything they're doing wrong, they're gonna walk. You know, they're gonna walk, and they're gonna. They're gonna look at those things and call those reasons, even though, you know, that's clearly wrong. I mean, that's just gonna give them more fuel to want to turn off kind of their hearts from you. And so I just encourage you in order to kind of keep the communication line open, go to them out of concern and say, you know, what's going on? Are you okay? I feel like we're disconnected because I think when you approach it that way, it's not attacking, it's out of concern. And so when you can go to your spouse and say, I feel like, you know, that we're not connecting, and I feel like it's because maybe you're hurt. You know, have I done something to make you not wanna talk? Is there something that I've done to where you feel like disconnecting because I want to help you? And when you come from that posture of wanting to help, it's really hard for your spouse to be angry at you. And I promise you, eventually they might open up. You know, I was talking to a military wife years ago, and she wanted, you know, some marriage counseling. But her husband at that time would not come again. He did not see that anything was wrong. He felt like everything was just fine. And whenever she would bring up, you know, we need to go to marriage counseling, he would kind of shut her down. So we talked about it, and she cried and just said, you know, I feel like my husband. I don't know what's going on with him anymore. I feel like he's totally kind of hardened his heart towards me. You know, we've got these young kids at home. I want our marriage to work, and I just. I miss him. I mean, she truly just missed the connection with her husband. And she was doing everything. She was praying, she was reading books. She was going to church regularly. He didn't always make that a priority. Well, you know, we met several times, and then there was one day where he came home and he was frustrated, and she went to him and she said, listen, what's going on? What is going on? Have I done something to make you feel like you can't talk to me because I want to help you. I can tell you're really carrying a heavy load. And she said for the first time in years, he actually told her what was going on. And he started tearing up. This big, burly military guy started tearing up, and he said, you know, I'm having all this pressure at work. I don't know how to handle this. And he started explaining the situation, and she said it was like just everything. You know, they connected for the first time in years. And he just started, you know, really kind of showing her his burden and allowing her to bear it with him. And it was this beautiful connection, and it was a turning point in their marriage. He started coming to church more. You know, her demeanor changed because she was like, okay, I'm finally kind of we're moving in the right direction with our marriage. And it doesn't mean it changed, you know, completely overnight. They had some work to do because they had been disconnected for so long. But because she went to him out of concern and not with accusations, he finally opened up. And I think if my friend had just gone to him and said, you're not being a good husband and you're not talking to me and just, like, telling him everything he's not doing, I don't know if he would have opened up like he did. So it's really important that we come as a friend. You know, again, we talk about being best friends in our Naked marriage book. That's a huge part of. Of having a naked marriage is being your spouse's best friend. Well, a friend comes out of love and out of concern and not with accusations. That doesn't mean we don't talk about hard things or point out maybe something that is a major concern, whether your spouse is sinning or doing something that's destructive to themselves or the family. But when you come out of concern, it really breaks down those walls.

It really, really does. And if you look at your spouse not. Not as a burden, even when they're the cause of a lot of the pain, like, I talked to a really close friend just this week, and he was kind of pouring out his heart about some of the difficulties he's having in his marriage and has for a long time that he says he feels like he's the one doing all the work, carrying the burden, and that his wife is not reciprocating any of that, and that also she's not doing really anything to lighten his load, which he takes is love acts of service is his love language. And she's just not essentially doing anything. And the frustration of that and the hurt from that is really mounted and mounted over time and really just started to just really crush his heart. He said, I feel like I have three kids and my wife is one of them, but she has access to all my money and is spending it in ways that I wouldn't want it spent. And he just feels really, really frustrated, but digging a little bit deeper in the situation. She's had a lifelong battle with anxiety disorder. She's herself wrestling with a whole lot where I think, in her way, she's doing all that she can do to love him, to be a good wife, to be a good mom. But at the same time, she's having to spend a whole lot of energy that would otherwise go to her husband and go to the family just to maintain the struggles that she's facing and that she's feeling and that she needs help to get through that. And so if you're in that kind of situation, and I cannot imagine to be on either side of that, to be the wife with this huge anxiety issue that she's faced all of her life, or to be the husband who feels like he's always been married to someone who's never really been in a position to, you know, to reciprocate, to be a partner in any way. I'm just, you know, praying for couples in that kind of situation that God would give strength to both of them and help them lean on each other and lean on him in new ways and not to see each other as a burden. Not to. Not to rank how much I'm doing 70%, you're doing 30. Not to rank it that way, but to give your best even when your spouse is not in a position to reciprocate, because that's what love is. And I think eventually there will be times when that spouse can reciprocate. But we can't measure love just like it's a transaction, like it's.

Because it's not.

Because it's not. That's not what love is at all.

I mean, Jesus himself showed us that.

That's right. And he gave us his very best when we were at our worst. And if your spouse is in a position when maybe they're at their worst right now, the love you give them in those moments is the purest love you could ever give.

Absolutely.

And I think God will. And if you do it with. With. Choose to do it with joy instead of bitterness, God will do something in you, I think, to make up for the Lack of what your spouse is in a position to give. And I know that's difficult. It's easier said than done.

And I think counseling. This is where counseling.

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I think that when you feel like you're fighting alone, you need somebody in your corner who is going to help root you on and give you perspective and sometimes bring you down from the anger that you're feeling or the bitterness that you're feeling. Yeah. Talk you off the ledge. And so, you know, I just cannot just say enough about finding a biblically based Christian counselor in your area. If you go to the Marriage Today website, we have some that we can recommend. We also have a marriage coaching network here where you can come in. If you're in the Dallas Fort Worth area, you can literally schedule a time to come in and meet with a marriage coach, but you can also call them or Skype with them. And it's just, it's a game changer because we need somebody. We need somebody to help us navigate this. And sometimes I want to say this little point too, and I know we've touched on this in other podcasts, but it's very important to understand that when you and your spouse are in this time where they're kind of, you know, one foot out the door and you're fighting alone, you need to resist the urge of calling your mom or your dad and talking all about this because, you know, you're praying for you to get back together. And when that happens, your parents are not gonna forget about all the hurtful things your spouse did because they're your parents. And so you have to resist that. But you can't do it alone. You need somebody. So please take advantage of the marriage coaching network we have here at Marriage Today. For more information, you can go to the website marriagetoday.com coaches coaches. And if you don't do that, please find a Christian marriage counselor, a Christian counselor in your area and just go to them on a weekly bas and it will help you to have hope. It will help you to navigate some of the dynamics of your marriage and maybe Give you a different perspective about what you personally can do to fight for your marriage during this season. But they will also encourage you, and you need that encouragement. You need to know that you're not doing all this in vain, that you're not alone in this, that God is with you. He is for you. He sees you in your pain. And so I can't say that enough that, you know, you need someone to talk to. And it's really awesome to have somebody who, you know, loves the Lord and who is professionally trained to help you navigate these hard, hard moments in your life.

Yes. Even if you're alone. I mean, maybe you think, well, I can't do coaching, counseling because your spouse won't show up with me. These are options that you can do alone. You can fight. You and God together can fight for a marriage even when your spouse isn't currently on board. And the coaches at Marriage Today can meet with you there. There are counselors in your area that can do the same. You need to surround yourself, insulate yourself with encouragement in your church and people that are, like Ashley said, going to be those positive influences. Because you're vulnerable when your spouse. When you feel like your spouse is not on board with you, when you're desperately trying to fight for a marriage, you're really vulnerable to a lot of different kinds of temptation. You're vulnerable to, you know, to bitterness. There's just a lot you're vulnerable to, even to fantasy.

I think sometimes we can even fantas without having the struggle of fighting for your marriage alone. I think we can start looking on Facebook. We can start, you know, thinking, well, maybe my life would be better if I wasn't with my spouse, or maybe things wouldn't be so hard and I would just not have to deal with this anymore. You know, I think it's easy to win an exit strategy when we're getting frustrated and we feel like it's not going as fast as we'd like it to go and that it just keeps on lingering and our spouse keeps on growing further apart from us. It's easy to get discouraged. And so it's so important to go to a counselor alone. Keep on asking your spouse to go to a marriage counseling, but in the meantime, definitely go alone. I think it's wonderful to have a confidant you can talk to who can help you navigate these things. And again, if you'd like to talk to a marriage coach at marriage today, it's marriagetoday.com coaches, and they are awesome. I've met all these Wonderful coaches, and they are amazing.

They really are.

So definitely do that. But we want to talk now about, you know, if your spouse has already left, like, you're. You're technically separated at this moment, your spouse is maybe threatening divorce, or maybe. Maybe there are divorce papers that are already drawn up and they're ready to sign, and you're not, and you're in that predicament. That can be really, really difficult.

It can be. And we know that there are many listening who are in that exact place. We've seen. We've seen God work miracles in that situation, and we've, you know, we've seen it, and we want to just stand with you believing that a miracle can be done in your marriage, and we want to give you a few tips and tools. But we also, again, want to reassure you that if your spouse ultimately chooses to go out that door and never come back, even when you've done all you can to fight for it, you do not need to hang your head down in shame. You do not need to feel like God's punishing you or that this is your fault if you're doing everything you can to save that marriage and your spouse still walks away. You know, the Apostle Paul wrote about this. He gave instructions about this 2000 years ago, referring to the unbelieving spouse, which even if your spouse would say they're a Christian, they're behaving as the unbelieving spouse because they're not believing in this marriage and they're not believing in God's plan for marriage if they choose to walk away. Paul says, in those situations, do everything you can to live at peace with them, to fight for reconciliation. But if they ultimately choose to divorce, he says, you know, let them go in peace. Like, you cannot force somebody to be in that situation, and you can live, you know, live your life in peace. But as for the fighting for the marriage part, do everything in your power to pursue reconciliation. If you have children, do everything in your power to promote healthy relationships between you and the kid, your spouse and the kids, you and your spouse together with the kids, you and that spouse are going to be part of each other's lives forever. Even if that spouse forces a divorce. Here, you're going to be part of each other's lives forever. And you need to do all you can to. To be a peacemaker. You know, Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. And so, you know, so how you.

Talk to them and about them is huge here.

It's huge. It's absolutely huge. But look for any Way to get that spouse to try to come to counseling with you, even if you have to say, listen, our relationship is going to be needs to be healthy for the sake of the kids, even if we're divorced. So will you come to counseling with me and get them to come under that premise? But your whole goal is, lord, do a miracle in this process. You know, work in their heart in this process and help them not give up on their marriage. Because if we're gonna go to all this trouble of co parenting together, then why don't we just fight for our marriage and do it under the same roof and make this work? So keep doing what you can. There's a book. We always, you know, we love it when you guys read our book, the Naked Marriage Book. Thank you for those who've read it or listened to the audiobook version. But I want to recommend a book on this that we did not write or have anything to do with. There's a book called the Love Dare, which is a 40 day exercise written by Alex Kendrick. It went along with a movie called Fireproof that came out years back. And this is a book or it's an exercise designed specifically for when you are fighting alone in your marriage and you're wanting something to do to really fight. It's 40 days, day one. Do this for your spouse day. Do to this. It's ideal if you and your spouse are still under the same roof to do the Love Dare. But even if that spouse has separated, I would say get that book, you know, might be the best 10 bucks you spend this month and follow that plan over the course of 40 days to really show love to your spouse. And in doing that, I believe the Holy Spirit can take those efforts you're doing and help them take root in the really hardened heart of your spouse.

Absolutely part of the Love Dare. It's just, it is an awesome book and I love it, especially for this kind of situation. It's calling out the good things you see in your spouse. And I will tell you and warn you, if you don't already know this, when your spouse is already kind of checked out, when you compliment them, they see that as like, oh, you're just saying that because you wanna get back together. It's just a ploy like you're not gonna continue saying that. So everything is gonna be taken with rolled eyes at the beginning. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't say it and that doesn't mean you shouldn't, you know, keep on being kind. It doesn't mean that Just because they're not receiving it, that they're not actually receiving it. Okay? Their body language and what they say might say otherwise, but they're still hearing you, and they're still seeing what you're doing, and God sees what you're doing. And I'm telling you, just those little acts of kindness, those little ways that you remind them who they are in the Lord, you remind them why the two of you got together in the first place, those things are gonna sink in, and God's gonna do something amazing with those. And we've literally seen this change marriages. You know, we have dear friends of ours, they were in a horrible spot in their marriage. They were basically. The husband was being verbally abusive. They were just not getting along at all. They had one child at the time. And I would meet with the wife, and Dave would meet with the husband, and the husband was totally done. I mean, he was like, there's no hope here. Like, I don't know why I'm even trying, because clearly, we're never gonna get along. I don't even love her anymore. I'm not even sure why we ever got together. This is the things the husband was saying. And the wife, she had hope at the beginning, and she was really fighting and she was really trying, but he was being so hateful to her. I mean, honestly, very, very verbally abusive, you know, saying very cruel things to her that she. She finally got to the point almost of apathy, of, like, I just don't know if I have it in me anymore. But they continued coming to church, maybe not always together. And they also continued coming to their small group, even though they wouldn't even sit together in the small group. And God used the people around them to literally change their perspectives and ultimately save their marriage. And it took time, but it was little by little. And this is one of those situations where it could have gone either way. I mean, this is. It was a very tough situation where Dave and I were praying, but we didn't know. We didn't know what was gonna happen. And little by little, they started, you know, talking again in a healthier way. They started, you know, flirting again eventually. And again, this takes a lot of time. And then they ultimately decided to renew their vows, and they recommitted their lives to the Lord and to each other. And I'm just so excited to say this was probably two or three years ago, and they're now pregnant with their second child, and they are more in love than they probably ever were, even on their wedding day. And it's just a beautiful story of what God can do even when it looks so bleak. It looks like, you know, we don't clearly know how to communicate or treat each other with respect. And so this can't go on. That's kind of where they were. But God did a miracle on them, and they don't talk to each other like they used to. You know, there's no longer any verbal abuse. There's been so much repentance, and there's been so much forgiveness in this relationship. And it wasn't a quick fix. But over time, God did do a miracle in their marriage. And they literally are walking miracles. I mean, this is one of those things that Dave and I witnessed with our own eyes. And whenever I see their posts on Facebook, I literally tear up. It, like, makes me. Just talking about it right now, it makes me tear up because I just am so thankful that God still brings dead things to life, that he still gives us beauty for ashes, because that's what he does with marriage, too. And I just want you listening to know that if you are that spouse and, you know, if I was sitting across the table from you drinking coffee and you're crying out your heart to me saying you don't know if there's hope, I want to tell you that there is hope. I would look you in the eye and I would grab your hands and I would say, there is hope and there's hope because we serve a God who wants to restore our hearts. He wants to restore marriages, and he can do that for you, too. Now, if you were listening and maybe your spouse is the one fighting that you see what they're doing. You see them trying to remind you of the man or woman of God, that you are, trying to remind you why the two of you got together, trying to really give you that olive branch and have communication once again with you. I think that God's using this to bring you back to him and to bring you back to your spouse. And so I would tell you, let this day be the day that things change, that you go to counseling with your spouse, that you do those things that you know you need to be doing for your marriage, that you give it another chance, that you know that God has more for you here and he has hope for your marriage. I just pray it's a turning point for you today.

This is a real, real life issue that a lot of you guys are in. And we. We also. We believe in the power of prayer. We believe that God is with you in this struggle. And we want to close this out. We don't. We don't close in prayer every time, but for this topic, I just feel like this is the way we need to close. And so I'm going to pray with you and for you. Just receive this as a blessing. If you're driving, please don't close your eyes during this prayer. Don't want you to meet Jesus earlier than you need to, but just receive this prayer as a blessing. Father, we want to lift up every husband, every wife who's listening right now. I want to first lift up that spouse who feels like they're fighting alone. Give them your strength and your hope and your peace as you promised to do. Give them endurance and encouragement. Surround them with people who will love and encourage them, protect them, and Lord, just do a miracle in this marriage. Answer their prayers for a miracle in their marriage. And for that spouse who God is just wayward right now, who's running the opposite direction, would you just pursue him or her? Bring them back to their senses, bring them back to their marriage and God just, I pray that you would wreck whatever reckless fantasies that they're living in that make them think that divorce is the option. And would you just bring them back to recognizing the beautiful blessing they have right in front of them with a spouse who's so willing to fight for them. I pray God for miracles in marriage, and we see this every day. We know you're still doing miracles in marriage, and we just thank you for that. And we are praying all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

Guys, thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Naked Marriage podcast. Thank you for, for subscribing, for sharing. If there's somebody in your life who is in this situation, would you share this episode with them directly? Just copy the link on your smartphone and send it to them as a text message. Just say, listen, I'm praying for you. And I think this episode could give you some help and encouragement and hope. And then together, you're partnering with us to spread the word to the people who need it most.

That's right. And just know that we're continuing to pray for you again. God sees you, he loves you, and he will carry you through this.