What Men Wish Women Knew About Men

Speaker: This is Wednesday in the Word, a women's ministry of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. Today is January eleventh, two thousand and nine. Our speaker is David Marotta, and his topic is what men wish women knew about men. Speaker 1: Well, I will tell you I do a lot of public speaking, and there is nothing I'm more nervous about than being here as the token male at Wednesday in the Word. There are at least five ways that this morning could go very badly. And those are just the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. So either my wife could leave in tears because I've said something really stupid, or you all could be in tears laughing so hard at me. So I am a representative from Planet Husband, which if you've never been to Planet Husband, there's still a lot in this talk that you can learn from. So if you're not yet married, this applies to at least half of the planet that's living today of just what men are like and the way that they think. The talk is officially called What Husbands Need Their Wives to Know. It actually has a subtitle, which is what one particular husband thinks that other husbands might appreciate him telling their wives things that he says they want their wives to know. So this is a candy store. If you eat everything in this talk, you will make yourself sick. So I want you to find one thing that's applicable to your marriage that you think might be a good thing to try. Take that home with you. See if it's sweet. If it's sweet, keep it. If it's bitter, spit it out of your mouth and pick something else. So I found that in order to be a good father and husband, it's not that I don't know the things I'm supposed to know. It's that I just don't pay attention to the things I'm supposed to know. And what's helpful is that sort of constant reminder that being a good spouse and being a good parent is important. And that constant reminder is what makes you a better husband, father, wife, mother, and that constant reminder. So this morning is a reminder. I expect there's a lot of things in today's talk that you already know, you've heard before. Um, if you've been through any kind of marriage books, there's lots of good wisdom in there. I find the best way to read a marriage book is like three pages at a time. You read three pages, you know everything on the pages because this is the way things work. And then, but it reminds you to actually go tell your wife that you love her and give her a hug. And just that reminder to go do that is what's important. And just reading the book helps you do that. So I have a group of men we meet twice a month at PADOs on Fridays, the second and fourth Friday, we're always at Patos. Um and it's just primarily to remind each other that the kind of men we should be before God, the kind of husbands we should be, the kind of fathers we should be, and it's just that constant reminder. And inevitably we talk about life and what's going on, and we get in each other's faces and stuff like that. Now, I will tell you that most a lot of people don't like that. You know, they don't want to come to a group like that because the group actually reminds you that this stuff is important, and and uh you know, inevitably some husband will come and he'll have some description of, you know, I just didn't understand. My wife did this and I had no clue. What if why did she do that? You know, sort of and we all try to interpret wife and and sort of translate back and forth because we've learned a few things along the way as well. So this is you can go home and tell your husbands they have a personal invitation to join me for lunch, them particularly. Because there's quite seriously, a lot of people just don't come to a group like that, and so the group dwindles after a while. And some people come for a while and it's very helpful, and then they go and they get busy doing other things. So if your husband is interested in a group like that, you know, we're down to a couple of people, and I would love to have you know eight or so people. So if there's six more people out of your husband's who'd like to come, it's great. And I can tell you it's an encouragement to every man who's there just to think about what's important in life and to and to figure that out. Um, this is our wedding photo. I have a lot of photos in here that will embarrass my wife terribly. In fact, if you know, if I'm just gonna ignore the fact that she's over there a little bit. April 10th, 1982. We are coming up on our 30th, um our 30th Valentine's Day knowing each other. So that was back in 79. Um we met fall quarter freshman year. This is um two weeks after graduating from college. So we knew each other throughout our college. Uh that's Ray, for those of you who know Ray Marotta, that's my brother Ray, back when he was young too. Um so I I don't know a whole lot about being a husband to anyone other than my wife, and so a lot of this stuff may or may not apply. Uh, but we've been married for a long time and have a pretty good relationship. We are not, we are not, however, perfect. So um so this is just by way of saying that we have all the problems, and one of the best things John Cunningham ever ever said was um was the fact that if you're not working on your marriage, that's a bad sign because there's always stuff to work on. And uh I'm kind of oblivious at times and like typical males. So um so that's just sort of a way of saying it. This is one thing I did want to say though, and this is from um Proverbs 31, and that is my wife deserves great praise. She is an incredibly wonderful woman, she's a godly woman. She encouraged I married her because she encouraged me to be more the man that I thought God wanted me to be, and that was uh and she was my best friend, and so we've had that relationship for a long time, and she is a wonderful wife. She is uh very much corresponds to who I am, and she encourages me in many ways. Um my wife has learned that I'm a little bit uh dense at times, and you have to say things directly, and so I don't like, you know, I don't like the sort of undertone where you're kind of hinting at things. That just drives me crazy. My wife is direct and very straightforward with me. She always tells me exactly what's on her mind. It's not it's it's it's never uh uh a question about it, and that fits me perfectly in terms of encouraging me to be the person that I should be. Speaker 2: So mine is what saying her children rise up and call her Krabby. Speaker 1: But your husband will bless you. Okay, you've probably heard the his need, her needs, and this is from her needs, and it's in that frilly, you know, and this is all this is all beautiful stuff. So the things that are your needs in marriage, you know, seem to come straight out of godliness and scripture, and there's there's no way to argue with any of these. You read these and you think, okay, this is virtuous, this is right, you know, if these are someone's needs, they must be a pretty good person. And you've all read the male's needs, and it reads like I don't know, like a four-year-old wrote them. So I'm gonna compare the two, and I'm and I'm using as an outline his needs, just to sort of explain a little bit more about that. Because I don't I don't think sometimes I think the books that talk about it don't really do it justice to try to explain it. So this is just an acknowledgement. Yes, your needs are virtuous, they're wonderful, and all husbands everywhere, when they read these, feel guilty. So they don't do them, but they think they do feel guilty about it. Um there's a few things I do want to say, and that is there are certain problems in a marriage that I always counsel for men are marriage breakers. One of them is abuse, they're the four A's: abuse, adultery, uh, addiction, and abandonment. And these are things that will destroy a marriage. And if these things are in your marriage, you often will need some kind of help. Hiding it is not the right thing to do. You need to go to see someone, you need to share that with a confidant that you have, you need to you need to address that. These things are things that don't go away, and these things are serious. And if if you're involved, if if your husband is involved in some of this, um you need to get help because it's not gonna go away and you need to get it straightened out. So these are serious things, these are sort of things that will wear down a marriage and break a marriage up. And so what I want to say is everything I'm gonna say as an apology for husbands. These are not things that are apologetic. These are things that are serious, these are things that need to be addressed, and these are things that are that are worrisome in a marriage. So I just want I want to say that because I know that in a group like this, there's probably some husbands who are jerks, and they they need, and that's what the discipline of the church is for, if they're members of the church, that's what your small groups are for, if there's someone in there you can confide with, that's what Christian counselors are for, and you need that kind of help to go through that. So just by way of saying, I'm gonna say a lot of things that are apologies for husbands, these are not apologies, these are not things that you just need to sort of take, these are things that are more serious and you need to do something about them. So these are sort of marriage breakers, if you will. They're a lot more serious if left uh unchecked. These are not marriage breakers. They also all begin with A. Annoying is not a marriage breaker. I know. But these are things, you know, arrogant. That's again, these are just sort of more common male traits. Adolescent, these are all just things and argumentative, these are all things that just, these, these are things you need to work through. So, and I think it's important to know the difference between the two. Because a lot of times I will see that things like this build up in a marriage and they ultimately end in divorce, and they don't deserve to end in divorce. I've never seen a marriage without the red stuff that really ends up breaking. I've never seen a marriage with this kind of stuff that wasn't salvageable and saveable and able to be put back together. Krisan and I knew a couple in Oregon. The wife took out a contract on the husband to kill him. Is that right? Yes. So so this that's how serious the annoyance had gotten. And then they finally both had gotten straight and become Christians and had a good relationship, and they had a lot of baggage, but they were actually doing really good. They loved each other and were working it all out. So you can kind of see that it's it's possible to recover from an awful lot in marriage. And I really haven't seen a marriage where just loving each other and working at it didn't improve the marriage tremendously. And I've seen a lot of you know, a lot of rehabilitated marriages that come through that. I would say the most important thing is to have Christians who you can confide in on a regular basis and who hold you accountable and who remind you. And that's what that's what the Friday mornings are for. So if your husband doesn't have a group like that and he's looking for a group like that, I'm in that group every every other Friday, and I would love to talk about things like this because it's it's that important. Okay. The first need of men is sexual fulfillment. And I just like to this I I have this picture on purpose because I'd like to ask you a question, and that is what is what is why is this car stopped? Is this car stopped because the driver is not making it go forward, or is this car stopped because of the red light? Is the red light stopping the car? Is the question. Just sort of an interesting question to ask. Yes, no. You know what I mean? It's it's one of those the car is stopped because the light is red, but the light isn't necessarily stopping the car. This is a picture, I think, of a lot of sexuality. In the sense that the car may want to go forward, but the red light is there, and so the car is not going forward. And so a lot of sexuality is everything has to be right in order for the car to go forward. So the first passage I'd like to look at is in Song of Songs 4. So if you have your Bibles, we're going to be all over the place in terms of your of Scripture. But Song of Songs 4 is a fairly long one. And I'd like to sort of start, I I put it up here, uh This is what the man has to say to the woman. And it begins, Song of Songs 4, How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful are your eyes, your eyes are like doves behind your veil, your hair is like a flock of goats that have descended from Mount Gilead, your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn ewes, which have come up from their washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost her young. Your lips are like a scarlet thread, your mouth is lovely, your temples are like a slice of pomegranate behind your veil, your neck is like the tower of David built with rows of stones, on which are hung a thousand shields, all the round shields of the mighty men, your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle which feed among the lilies until the cool of the day, and it goes on and on and on. So, um so this is what the man has to say to the woman. Um, and this is very beautiful and poetic language, and if you start getting into what it means, there's a ton of stuff in it. I'll just take one as an example. Your hair is like a flock of goats that have descended from Mount Gilead. Now, you may not think this is the best compliment to give your wife. Your hair is like a flock of goats. But you have to understand the culture. In the culture, a woman's hair was considered reserved for her husband to see. So that's why you have all that in 1 Corinthians the head covering to honor her husband. You would cover your hair saying, Bewing my hair is only something that my husband gets to see. So now you can imagine that no one sees her hair, and now she's in the private seat of her bedroom with her husband, and she lets her dark black hair down across her shoulders. And goats were black, and so it's like it's like uh a pattern. You know how goats follow one another when they go down the hill? It's like this beautiful image of dark black goats coming down across the pale Israeli countryside as she lets her hair down across her shoulders because she's letting her hair down for her husband, she has reserved this part of her beauty and sexuality only for her husband, and her husband finds that incredibly attractive. unknown: Okay. Speaker 1: So now when you read her f your flock of hair is like a, or your hair is like a flock of goats, it's not quite so ugly an image. It's a beautiful image, and we have all kinds of images in our culture that if you were to throw them into a different language would sound bizarre. So he is praising her and he is he is praising her beauty and she and he is he is wooing her, if you will. Okay. Now, you'll notice in this whole speech, there's no sexual activity. He's talking about sexual things, he's talking about beautiful things, but there's no sexual activity. Until finally, you get all the way down to verse 16, and here's what the woman has to say. She says, Come on in. Basically, awake, O North, and let come the winds of the south, make my garden breathe out fragrance, let its spices be wafted abroad, may my beloved come into his garden and eat its choice fruits. She is in essence like the stoplight. He's waiting for the light to turn green, and then sexuality can happen, and everything has to be set up and right and all of that stuff. But but she is the one who is deciding when the car goes and when the car doesn't go just by the simple fact that she is the stoplight. And so husbands, I will tell you, are incredibly insecure creatures. They are more insecure than your children. I am the most I'm one of the most put together men I know, and my wife still does not understand how insecure I am. And I will tell you, I have talked to some of your husbands, and they are even more insecure than I am. So as put together as I see all the I see all the older wives out there, and they're nodding because they've come to know this. So you do not know how insecure your husband is. He is incredibly insecure, and that's important to know because he needs constant reassurance. And if the number one need he has to know how you how you care about him is sexuality, you can almost take a very simple formula for men. If you ask them, how's your marriage going? They don't know this, but in the back of their mind they're going, sex. That good. That bad. That good. It's backward to some activity of sexuality, is usually the way they're measuring how good it is. Now, the more put together and secure your husband is, then the longer it can go back and he's still okay with it, or the more he can he can work in his mind on the whole of your relationship. And there's all kinds of different formulas. Sometimes it's when you initiate it at last, because if he initiated it, it doesn't count. There's all kinds of formulas in men's mind. But it's always some kind of a duration period, and that's just the way he thinks about it. And regularity is probably more important than frequency. And the other thing I will say is especially, I just finished coming back from uh Stanford this past fall, and I heard Philip Zimbarta, who's a psychologist, and he had something to say. He has he has this thing called time perspectives, and he he said that there are the futures, people who live in the future and they're always planning for things. You know, think of a lawyer who has to prepare a case before the Supreme Court, and he has to get down everything he's going to say, and he practices it over and over again, and he has to put on his best suit, and he has to be very official. And so think that. He's a very future-oriented person. Futures have the hardest time, future men have the hardest time with sexuality. Because sexuality requires that you not be a planner. And if you think about sexuality that way, it's almost always going to fail. Because sexuality is emotional, it's in the moment, it is playful, and so in his future orientation, he has trouble just sort of turning the switch back and forth between the two, and so he has a hard time because for him then sexuality is suddenly like you have to prepare for it, and you have to be ready, and you have to, how do you practice it ahead of time? It just doesn't make any sense. You know, sexuality is that way. So if you have a husband who's very successful, he often has a hard time with this, and he just needs the light to be not flashing different colors. He needs to know what that light is like. Along those times, along those lines, um, you might think that this is men's lights. And it's very it's very much, you know, you've made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride. You've made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes. That's kind of all it takes. And this might be women. Speaker 2: I don't really know what that is. Speaker 1: There's some green there, so it's hopeful, you know, but but there's more red than green, and I would it's it's difficult. Men just gonna You know, that's why the man's side is this is this huge speech. He's trying to make sure he's pushed all the buttons to cross to cross without getting run over. You know, and then and that's why the woman just has to say, come on in, and and there, you know, he's ready. So so men and women are very different this way, and it's just important to know we're very insecure, sexuality is is an important piece of it, and you initiating it is okay because you're the stoplight. And so sometimes you don't have to do too much. You know, sometimes you just have to do one thing. Sometimes you could just mention maybe tonight we could go to bed early, and you know, you get those eyes, and then it's like, you know, all day he'll be thinking about you. I can almost guarantee it. You know, it's just you it's that's just the way men are. So it's just important to know that we are, you know, I'm trying to make an apology for men, and by that I just mean a defense of what we're like and how to understand us a little bit better. Okay. You have probably heard that I am a comic book fan and a Star Trek fan, and um recreational companionship is an important piece. Um, and I think Krisan has mentioned before that when she married me, she got Star Trek and Spider-Man, and when I married her, I got Broadway musicals. Um I I clearly got the better deal in terms of culture and everything else. But but it's important to have things that you do with your husband that are his world that you join in just because. Now, I missed a lot of male bonding, so we don't watch football in our family, and we watch soccer, and actually my wife watches soccer even more than I do. So, you know, there's just different things, and I never learned to sit in a tank top and drink beer, and so there's all kinds of things I don't do, and she has to join me in the weird things that I do, and one of my weird things is that I grew up with Spider-Man and learned a lot of stuff from Spider-Man, and probably knew Peter Parker longer than anyone other than my immediate family. So I started collecting Spider-Man comic books at age four. And this is the San Diego Comic-Con. I have to tell you, this is not even a piece. You can see in the background that's 1900 and that's 1800. Those rows go from 100 up to, I think, 4200. So this is two rows out of 42 in the San Diego Comic Convention. So we went here a year and a half ago, and Krisan not only went, she actually enjoyed it. So that is just a strange thing. Our whole family went. And just to prove she was there, there she is. And and it was now this is this is, I think, an important little Venn diagram. You have husband's interests, you have wife's interests. The intersection is most commonly the kids. unknown: Okay. Speaker 1: So if you're if the only intersection you have in terms of your shared interests, and if you only do things together in what is happens to be in the middle here, you're going to be in trouble. And the time when most families get divorced, when most couples get divorced, is when the kids leave. So we have uh our our youngest is a senior in high school. She's headed off for college. So the time when we're supposed to get divorced is next year, because all we had in common with the kids, and then there's nothing left in common. And then you suddenly realize we're just staying together because of the kids. Now, I know if you have young kids, there's no time other than the center section. And I know that. And that's why raising a family consumes everything. But what Krisan and I have tried to do is as much as possible make what we share together the union of these two rather than the intersection of these two. And maybe there's not a whole lot of time for that. Maybe there's just a little bit of time. Maybe it's just a day out of the month when you happen to do something together. But you can imagine if you make what you intersect together greater, the only way to do that is by the husband and wife moving closer together. And so that's what it does in a relationship, is when you start taking an interest, you just sort of start moving this way toward your husband, and when he takes an interest in your things, he's moving this way toward the things that are the least or the most fun in what you have, and you move together on that. So that's the importance of having shared interests for husbands. Is because we have things that are fun for us, and the most thing what we want is we want our best friend and our companion to be there and sharing in this. And I will say that this is something that means a lot to husbands, and it's and that's the reason why. And if you want your marriage to survive your children, then this is important because and our youngest, our youngest just thinks we're a little too excited about being empty nesters. Every now and then Megan will say, you know, I'm still here. Because we have plans, because we like each other, and because we're best friends, and because we enjoy doing stuff together, that, and you know, we work ten feet apart, so it, you know, we get to spend a lot of time together, so we better like each other. So that's all part of trying to have these kinds of shared interests. And I will tell you that when Krisan is watching bad science fiction movies with me, and there aren't very many good science fiction movies, I appreciate it. I just appreciate the fact I have someone to talk about with the movie and what's going on and and and things like that. And so it's it's another part of those shared interests that's important. Okay. This is Krisan, I think, in college. I think there's a picture of her from college. Uh, attractive spouse. Um let me tell you the two attributes of my wife that I will talk about in public that have the most attractive effect on me. One is her smile. She has a smile that and she has different kinds of smiles. I don't know, you you know, you know, and there's a smile she gives me that no one else ever sees very much, and it's that smile that is the most attractive. It just brightens my whole day, it makes me um beam with you know pride and gratitude. And her eyes, she has eyes that she gives only me. And I know for those of you who are married, you have a smile and eyes that you give your husband in the most in the in the in the best of times that makes all the difference in his world. And that is a big piece of attractiveness. You know, they have done studies, women smile, I think it's five or six times as frequently as men, which is good because it's the only that's your your your biggest attribute of attracting your husband to you is your smile. And so, you know, men, we don't smile and it's okay somehow. But when women smile, it you know, when we smile, it looks goofy. But when you smile, it's attractive, and that's an imp that's an important piece of uh of everything. Speaker 2: I know. Speaker 1: We're engaged at this point. Um let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth as a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breast satisfy by you at all times. There's a piece of the sexual relationship that men will remember. And so there's a piece of of being young and the and the things you've been through and the attractions you've been through and all of that. There's a piece that you'll remember that can can last your whole life. So sometimes you're sort of storing up pieces of the relationship, and the whole of it together is seen as very attractive. Now, I will tell you that there's a balance between attractiveness, and that is in today's society, there's an attractiveness which, I don't know, sort of it I don't I don't know quite how to put this, but you can be attractive in a way that attracts all men, and you can be attractive in a way that attracts your husband. And I'm just I'm trying to be gracious about the two of those. And you can you can be attractive in a way when you're single and you're available, and then you can be attractive in a different way when you're trying to reserve all that attractiveness for your husband. Do you understand what I'm saying? And there's a line and there's a balance there. And sometimes the way in which you attracted your husband before he was your husband is not appropriate now that he's your husband. Now that's reserved for the bedroom and for the home, and and the world's sort of attractiveness when you're out in the market for a husband needs to be tempered. And I'm I'm trying to be just sort of as judicious as possible in saying that. That will bring a peace and um trust to your relationship with your husband. He may have liked it when you were single, and he may not want it when you're married. And there's a line you cross. Now this it doesn't mean um it doesn't mean let me just take Song of Songs. I was a wall and my breasts were like towers, which means they were inaccessible. I was chaste. And then I became in his eyes as one who finds peace. So if you're chaste before marriage, then your husband knows that you're not going to be unchaste when you're in marriage. Again, the heart of her husband trusts in her. You have to have that. Again, the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does, and he wants to know this is his territory, his realm. And then every woman who prays or prophesies with her hand uncovered, which means I'm not married. So if you're a wife and you pray with your head uncovered, you dishonor your husband because you're taking off the sign that you're his, then this is the most clear, as a ring of gold in a swine snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion. So you may have been very attractive and you may have dressed in a way that attracted men before marriage. Now that you're married, your husband wants to know that he's that you're his. And there's a piece to that. So when it talks about an attractive spouse, it has to be tempered by the idea that you're now married, and your husband wants you to be seen as married, and your husband doesn't want you to be giving off the signs which you may have just been trained to that I'm available and I'm open now that you're married. I'm just I'm trying to say it in as delicate a way as possible, but I know a lot of husbands who struggle with other men's wives dressing certain ways. So men are very visual, and so visual matters, and what kind of blouses you wear matter, and what kind of attire you have, and all of that matters. So there's some kind of a balance there where I think you will bring peace to your relationship if you're once you're married that you're dressing in a way that says you're married. Now, if you're single and you're dressing in a way that shows you're single, I'm okay with that. It's like you're you're you don't have your hair covered, which was the way of saying I'm single. And then there's another way of saying you're married. So there's an attraction to the exclusivity of reserving your beauty and sexuality for your husband, and that's why the hair like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead is so beautiful to the husband. You've reserved that aspect for him, and he's the only one who gets to see that and enjoy that. So that's just a way of saying, and I think a lot of our culture is telling you something different, and I'm just trying to tell you if your husband, you know, I think in his heart of hearts, and I could be wrong, but in his heart of hearts, I think he wants to know that you're reserved for him, and he wants that to be clear and obvious in the way you act and the way you dress. And so I'm I'm just trying to temper that a little bit. This is just, this is this is in our first department. So um, is that Organ? Is that Orchin? unknown: That's David Avenue. Speaker 1: Oh, you're right. You're right. See, I don't even know where these pictures are. Um and this is important to be said, and that is uh your beauty should not come from outward adornment. This is your passage from 1 Peter that you're studying, uh such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry. Instead, it should be that inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, in which which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way that holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. So there is both outward beauty and there's inward beauty, and the older I get, the more it looks like I'm married to a trophy wife. But um but she is also growing more beautiful on the inside as well, as she as she makes herself more beautiful by studying God's word and by um and by her um her godliness. Yeah, I know. So um again, this is from this is from Proverbs. There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand, and the punchline, of course, is in the way of a man with a maiden, which is which is the most amazing thing of all. So, again, this is the way that men think, this is the way that they understand things. Uh this is from one of my favorite movies, our favorite movies, Casablanca, which is great, uh, which is the way of saying we'll always have Paris. So men remember, men remember all of those kinds of things in which you build up, and men very much their wife, their confidant, their best friend, the person who joins them in the recreation activities, all of that builds up to build a house, relationship together, a house which is strong and secure. And I think we're we're going to come up on one of the proverbs of uh of a good wife builds her house rather than tearing it down with her own hands. And I would say that much of your family and your relationship and your marriage is in your hands, in the sense of you can you can do the things that build it up or you can do the things that tear it down, and it uh and it really matters what you do. Okay, need number four is called domestic support, which I always thought was a strange name because it sort of sounds like I want someone to cook and clean for me, but it's actually a little bit different from that, and that is um your husband needs you to make him both have a refuge in the home and also to make him a success in the home. I will tell you that I am an incredibly good father by any measure, and I would not have been that without my wife. So my wife came to me very early on. You know, Brennan was born, he was a little baby, he did not come with an instruction manual. We put him in the backseat of our car, and we both looked at each other, and Krisan said, they just let us take him. It's like there were all these tests and stuff, you had to get your uh your vitamin K shot, and you had to do this and put gunk in their eyes. And then they just handed them to us, which was the most biggest mistake of all, because we didn't know what we were doing. And and Krisan gave me a piece of advice. She said, you know, if you want to be involved in his life, you will change diapers and do whatever it is that he's doing right now, because you have to join him in his life, because he's not joining you in your life. And so Krisan helped me be a success by giving me really good advice and by making me a success step after step after step. So, you know, I mean, one of the worst things that she never did, you know, is like, wait until your father comes home. Oh, that's gonna make dad a real good success. You know what I mean? It's like make them dread their father coming home. No, when I came home, it was like the party started. It was like the whole day was in anticipation of dad coming home and won't it be fun, and you can show them this and you can do this. And so I became super dad because Krisan was super mom and set everything up for me. It was like it was like putting a track right into the strike zone and just saying, look, just drop the ball here, and it goes right down into the strike zone. It was really easy to do because she set it all up. And so sometimes the kids remembered dad as a wonderful thing, but they really should remember the fact that mom set it all up in the background and they didn't even know what was going on at the time. So that's the kind of thing of domestic support is when I came home, home was not another set of chores for me to do. Home was all set up for me to be a success as a husband and a father and everything else. And yes, I was helpful because Krassan needed a break from the kids, but it was also all sort of set up for me. And so by domestic support, it means making him a success in what he's doing. The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands. And that's that's what the the the home is um primarily relationships, which men are not as good at as women. So Krisan would tell me Megan is struggling with this or Brendan is struggling with this, and they need you to go tell them this. And so she'd kind of give me the whole script, and I just sort of got to play the part of Super Dad because she knew what was going on in the family, and I had no clue. So that's the kind of thing that I think makes uh makes everything a success. Um it is not good for the man to be alone. He needs someone to help him do that and help him through the process. So so you are uh essential in the process of what a man needs to do in his home, especially. And let me just uh see her anything. I know. Isn't that amazing? Um this is this is Megan's dear dad, you're the best dad in the world. Love Megan. The wife is in in 1 Corinthians, the wife is called the glory of her husband. Glory is an interesting word. The man is called the glory of God, and the wife is called the glory of her husband. The word glory in Greek, um, I took classical Greek and we we had to learn it not as glory. In classical Greek you have to learn it as opinion or reputation, which is an odd thing. So the wife is the reputation of the man, meaning the man is not going to be a success except that his wife makes him a success. And if his wife does something good, it reflects on him. So I always wanted Krisan to be a complete success because it reflects back on me and makes me a success. And without her being a success, there's no way I could be a success in the home. It was it was that clearly linked. So I always think of this and I always think, yeah, Megan was fooled into thinking it was dad when in fact it was mom who was setting up most of that and doing most of that together. This is from this is from 1 Timothy. Therefore I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion of reproach. It's talking about younger women getting married. The interesting thing in here is keep house, which is a specific Greek word, and if you don't read Greek, that is oikodespoten, which means it's from two words, oikios, which means house, and despot, which means ruler, absolute. So you take those two words together, and she is the oikios despot, which means she is the house ruler. Now, I know that it says that men are the head of their household and the head of their families and all that kind of stuff. But there are two realms to that. This is the Bible telling you that you should be the Oikios despot. You should be the ruler of your house, you should be the one for whom the buck stops there, the authority stops there, you help set that up, you understand what's going on. If you will, you're like the KGB, you're in charge of internal affairs, and you need to make sure that that all runs smoothly and well. Now, yes, there may be some figurehead and he deals in foreign affairs. That's okay. I can tell you your figurehead wants you to run the house well, and they want you to take care of that, and that is your realm of authority, and that is what that is what he wants. Now, there are times in which he may come in and want to overrule something, and he may want to do something. You need to listen carefully and you need to advise him well. So he may have a different perspective, and something may need to happen. They've done psychological studies, and for charity and love and grace inside the family, women win hands down. Now they have shown that for charity and grace to those outside the family, men are better at that. Women are quite often, I'm going to protect my cubs and I'm going to shoot arrows at everyone else. So, and that's and that's so you know, even study after study will show that. So in foreign affairs, I think it's better to defer to him rather than get out your bazooka and you know take aim. You know, and and church politics is uh is especially like that. Church politics is you know, it's like, whoa, what's going on? You know, I just got shot from three bazookas, and uh and it's it's it's difficult to know what happened there. So the charity outside the family might be a little harder, but in terms of running and ruling the family, that is your realm. And in terms of headship, um, you know, Krisan and I were married and we were trying to figure out this headship thing, and I I can't even remember what chills, she's gonna correct me and all this. I can't even remember exactly what the decision was, but we were making so many decisions when we first got married. She said, Well, on that one, you're the head and you should just decide. I said, okay, well, I get to decide, you know. I said, well, my first decision is I want you to have an opinion because I don't know what I'm doing. So you can you sort of can't, you have to be involved in that, and and a good head needs all the strengths of his helper and wants to know what's going on. And so I think you there's a sense in which if you have a head who's sensitive and you feel like maybe he's not in charge and he's not leading, it's because he trusts you and he values your opinion and he wants to know what you think because he thinks you might know better, and that's okay. When I'm counseling men, I I never, you know, sometimes they'll come in and they'll say, I'm, you know, I'm I'm I'm told I'm just being too much of a wimp, and I just need to lay down the law. You know, and I say, well, like what law? You know, what well I don't know what law. And so, well, then don't lay it down. You don't even know what law you're supposed to lay down. You know what? Being sensitive is never a bad idea with your wife. I just can't imagine that that would ever be a bad thing. So in the converse, I think is true, and that is having an opinion and stating what your opinion is, and you probably know better, especially for internal affairs, you probably know better what's going on. And it's important for your husband to know what that is. Now, he may still have a different opinion, and that's where you get the conversation and you try to draw closer together. But I don't I don't think, now, I could be wrong, and maybe you have a husband who doesn't want you to have an opinion, and that's possible. There are husbands like that. But I still think having the opinion is a good idea and telling him is a good idea. It's just you have to know where the line gets crossed in terms of running over him or annoying him or all the other things that can happen. And the better the relationship, obviously, the better the communication's gonna be. But I will say that with inside the family, the Oikas deskpot needs to roll well. And that there's a realm of authority there that I think you have to make sure gets run well. And I think that's what it means by domestic support is you want those kids to be smiling. You want them to be well taken care of. You want things to be running well, you want a refuge when you come home. It's not another, it's not another set of chores. That's exactly right. I remember those days. You know, it was like I came home and it was like I there are eyes Krisan's gives me like those eyes of get me out of here. I'm going to take a bubble bath. You know, and I'd play with the kids for a few hours or something. So, home is not first and foremost another set of burdens. Um this is from uh Proverbs 31 again. Uh her husband is respected at the city. This is a good wife who can find her. A husband is respected at the city gate where he takes a seat among the elders of the land. I will tell you that one of the things that I think most of the elders in the church, the reason why they're elders, is because of their wives. So I think a lot of of the way in which a man goes is going to be determined by his wife helping him and making him a success and encouraging him to be the man. That God wants him to be and directing him that way. She looks well to the way of her household, and she does not eat the bread of idleness. So again, these are all things on that. And then husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So again, this goes back to are you too ramroding your husband? Are you making him do too many things? Are you making him serve you too much? Are you not letting him be a leader? But husbands' charge, if I were speaking to a group of husbands, this would be the verse. And Krisan and I have a phrase, you're not bleeding yet. So what that means is you're not yet fulfilling this command. Because you're not bleeding yet. So I would say that husbands are required to take an awful lot in terms of service for their wives. So again, this is just a way of saying if you think that your husband is too deferential and he's caring about you. Now, his charge is really high, and if he's not bleeding yet, it's okay for you not to feel guilty. So if he's bleeding, he's still not, then he's just meeting what God expects of him. So there's a sense in which it's okay to have your opinion and to and to do. So again, uh, this is one we use among our husbands. You're not bleeding. So when I say is that fair? He says, Well, you're not bleeding yet. It's just sort of like, of course it's fair. You're you're not yet serving service uh serving your your wife the way you should be. Again, this is this verse in 1 Peter's coming up, and I just wanted to say live with your wives in an understanding way as with a weaker, as with uh a weaker vessel, or I think it says in 1 Peter, is a weaker role of authority. Husbands ultimately are heads of the household, and when a decision needs to be made for the family, ultimately they're the one for whom God is going to hold them responsible. So there is a line after all of your giving good advice and trying to make sure he's not going in the right way, there's a line at which he's responsible for making the decision, and God's going to hold him accountable. And after the decision gets made, if it's not the way you want, then supporting him in that is still important. But it's his charge to be deferential because he because he can run roughshod over you. And God knows that, and that's why God in 1 Peter, Peter gives this advice, and that is to live with your wives in an understanding way and to be deferential. So if you think your husband is deferential, that's okay. That's not that is a strong leader, it's a strong headship, it's strong authority, it's it's you know, sometimes I think young men need older men to show what you can be strong and still be deferential in service serving other people, and that combination is not a sign of weakness, it's actually a sign of strength. It's the weak man who gets angry and says, I'm not gonna do that, and gets all pouty and stuff like that. So the deferential is okay, and it's okay to be, to not think, oh, I'm somehow usurping his authority. There is a place where he has authority and he has to say, this is the way I think it's got to go. Okay, the last one is um admiration. And again, I put up this uh this picture because it makes me look like I'm actually important. But Krisan knows better, and so this is the thing, it how she sees me is more important than how I'm picturing the newspaper or anything else that's going on, because I know I'm a you know, I I know that there's a thousand ways you can laugh at me before breakfast. So this is the kind of thing what your wife thinks of you is is she actually knows you and knows what you're like, and so her admiration means a lot more. Um she does him good and not evil all the days of her life. Knowing that she is on my side is an incredible support to me. It gives me a lot of courage to go out and do things I wouldn't go out and do otherwise because I know that she is on my side and wants the best for me and isn't against me, I guess would be the way. I mean, if Krisan were against me, I'd just fold up and die because she knows too much about me and and and you're and you know too much about your husbands. You have every reason to laugh at them, and if you wrote if you wrote down just even one of the embarrassing things that you know about them that you don't tell people, that would be amazing. Now, that does bring up sort of this back and forth, and that is there are some stories that may be really funny between the two of you that are not really funny when you tell them in front of other people. And so you need to count the number of things you say about your husband in a derisive manner and count the number of things that you say about him in an admiring manner, and you can destroy him in his ego if the ratio is less than about six or seven to one. So you have to say about seven or eight admiration things to every one that you say that pokes fun at him, because again, he is incredibly insecure. He is more insecure than I am. And I'm, as I said, one of the most put-together people I know. So, and I'm incredibly insecure. So, and Krisan knows all the stuff that could make fun of me. And so it has to be temporary, and you you can just sort of count. And when, you know, I and you you slip, you say something because it's really funny. And then you have to think, okay, I've got to think of seven things that are you just have you have to make up the difference, or you're gonna tear down your own house. So it's it's that important, and he's that insecure. And you wouldn't think it, you know, because when you married him you didn't know him as well as you know him now, but he is, he's that insecure. Um the glory of young men is their strength, if you're looking for things to praise them, the glory of young men is their strength, and the honor of old men is their gray hair, so you have to sort of change the things that you admire in your husband as he gets older and older. This is my father and I, so pretty soon this is gonna be me, and I'm not gonna be as you know strong and young and virile as I am today. I'm already getting gray hair, and so you have to you have to take different things that you admire in them, and you have to sort of adjust what's going on, and you have to know what's going on in your husband. So you have you have to admire the things that you can admire them. And also, I will tell you, there are things that I am today because Krisan admired something that didn't exist in me and made me want to fulfill that admiration. And so, I mean, just you know, just being a good dad was one of the things. I admire you because you're a good dad, made me want to be an even better dad. And so praise does work better than derisiveness. It derisiveness makes me sort of just, and most men, they just we sort of fold up and we don't know what to do and we give up. Because it's like I'm trying really hard and it's not working, so I might as well not try because it couldn't be any worse. And so there's that's sort of the attitude of four-year-olds. Okay. This is Megan's favorite picture of Krisan and I from our college years. Um it's interesting in Ephesians when he's summing up the marriage passage, he says for uh men to love their wives and for wives to respect their husbands. It's it's different and it's not reciprocal, and this is the admiration piece. Um that respect goes a long way toward uh overcoming our adolescence. Um then this is just interesting. I found in Proverbs that basically the same thing is said almost four different ways. This is this is Krisan's grandparents. Mimi gave us great advice when we're getting married. She said, don't uh both get angry at the same time. We've been trying to do that ever since. But I think this is interesting. It's better to live in the corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman. It's better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman. And then just in case you didn't get it the first time, it's another verse. It's better to live in a corner of the roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman. You know, the wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands. Probably the most dangerous part of your marriage is your mouth. And that's just that's just the truth of it. Is, you know, you can bless, you can curse, you can tear things down, you can build things up, you can encourage, or you can destroy. And that's the hardest piece, I think, because you're verbal, you're saying things a lot, you're trying to keep up your end of the conversation and his end of the conversation too, you know, because he may not be talking as much. And so you're saying things sometimes that are not the best things to say, and it's just it's just difficult. So again, you know these things. These are just reminders, and they're just sort of like, yes, this is really important stuff. This will determine whether or not I reach my 30th wedding anniversary. And that's you know, that's that's the importance to it, and you need to sort of uh do that as you as you go forward. And then um, aren't we cute? So um, this is the sort of last thing. Speaker 2: Aren't we cute? Yeah, aren't we cute? Speaker 1: This is this is two guys, you can tell by the horns. And this is my favorite verse in terms of the apology of husbands. You wouldn't know it's about husbands, but it is. Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean. But abundant crops come by strength of the ox. So I understand that men may not be the best things to have in your house. We make a mess, we're not the most attractive of creatures, but there is a strength in having a man, and and and that strength is valuable in terms of what it takes to put the marriage together properly. So, I mean, I would say that part of our weaknesses are our strengths. So we may not be the most sensitive people, but we're also not the most emotional. So you're good to have sort of uh someone to lean on, and you just we're firmly planted and we don't move that much. And so our strengths are our weaknesses, but nevertheless, I think there's uh there's great value in in that. Um just very quickly, I've gone over time, but uh questions?