Emotionally Healthy Marriage Disc 1 Session 1 - Jimmy Evans

[Music] marriage today presents taking personal responsibility for your emotional health by jimmy evans [Music] you know emotional health it just you know it just deals with you know our emotions uh you know anger jealousy uh depression discouragement hurts unhealed hurts all kinds of things like that that when they're not dealt with properly they can really affect our marriage in a negative way but when we're emotionally healthy it just means we're happy we're well adjusted it doesn't mean we have don't have problems because there just simply isn't such thing as a marriage without problems it means we can deal with our problems in an appropriate manner and it means our problems are minimized but it basically just means we have a happy marriage there's a little story about a mood ring and this is a story this woman says my husband being unhappy with my mood swings bought me a mood ring the other day so he would be able to monitor my moods we've discovered that when i'm in a good mood it turns a beautiful blue green when i'm in a bad mood it leaves a big big red mark on his forehead and so i want you to be happy so let's talk about the first issue tonight the the first issue in having an emotionally healthy marriage is taking responsibility for your own emotional health and happiness and this is a massive issue let me talk about adam and eve for just a minute you know you remember adam and eve that's the beginning of the bible when god created marriage that's the original marriage and adam and eve their their good marriage lasted one chapter in the bible that's not good uh god basically created marriage in genesis chapter two that's where he said it's not good for man to be alone and he blessed and ordained their marriage in genesis chapter 3 adam and eve fell and you remember the serpent came into the garden the devil in the form of a serpent he came into the garden and he tempted them and they fell but when they fell i remind you that they didn't just fall in a moral way or a spiritual way their emotions fell peace became fear before the fall they were full of peace they had a harmonious relationship harmony became hiding from god in each other is now they're hiding behind fig leaves they don't trust each other anymore and intimacy became enmity literally a striving against each other and god cursed eve in genesis 3 16 and said your desire will be for your husband but he will rule over you in other words and this the word desire there does not mean a physical desire or a sexual desire it means a power desire it means from now on eve before before you sinned you guys had this wonderful intimacy and harmony in your relationship but now you're going to want to control him but he won't allow it he he won't he won't i won't allow you to do that your desire will be for for him but he will rule over you and so now they have fallen emotions in a bad relationship but let me say this one of the worst things that happened in all that happened in the fall of mankind was they would not take responsibility for what they had done and you remember when god comes up to adam and eve after the fall he interviews them and he comes up to adam and says adam what is this that you've done and this is an opportunity now for adam to repent but instead of repenting what adam says is it's that woman you gave to me i mean that's been happening for 6 000 years since it's and then remember that god came to eve eve what is this that you've done and she said the devil made me do it and so understand the original sin that has been passed on to all of us is blame transference when when we're born in sin if we're not just born with an inclination to sin that's bad enough we are born with an inclination not to take responsibility for it and this has a devastating effect on marriages and so let me just give you a typical marriage counseling situation because over the years you know i've counseled a lot of people in marriage and of course before karen and i before our marriage turned around i'm just saying i was just a complete jerk i never said i was wrong for three years of dating and two years of marriage i never one time admitted that i had a problem it was always karen's fault i always did everything that i could when we had a problem to convince her that she was the problem and karen was unhealthy enough for a period of time that she was willing to allow that but as she the lord began to heal her she began to stand up to me in a very good way and it really changed our marriage when she stopped being the scapegoat in our relationship but in marriage counseling what i see typically in marriage counseling is both people if two people actually show up for the marriage counseling session both people are actually there simply to give me the information i need to fix their spouse it really is the truth they do not believe they're the one at fault they may have an incy beansy little problem but their spouse is the devil that's that's kind of the way it is i'm serious is the sweetest people in the world and i know these people you know have known them for years and they're sitting in my office and basically they're acting as prosecuting attorneys against each other and they're trying to tell me here's what she did on the evening of the 16th of june and here's all the evidence and she's you know bringing up everything and they're they're sitting there and the problem isn't just that they're feeding all this information the problem is both of them typically really don't believe that there's anything wrong with what they're doing and they'll sit there and deflect the blame and and one of them will give me some information and i'll turn and i'll say tell me about that yes that may be kind of true but and they deflected over and so this issue of blame transfer is really a serious issue but but here's what i want you to understand even though adam and eve transferred the blame god didn't accept it adam said it's her fault and eve said it's the devil's fault god cursed them individually god turned to adam and said adam you have sinned and let me say something else by the way i do not believe that the story would have turned out the way it did if they would have taken responsibility for their sins i'm not saying that god would there wouldn't have been a penalty god gave them an opportunity to repent for what they had done but what they did is they both deflected it and i want to say something to you is that the way that you deal with your problems in life and taking responsibility for it it has a tremendous amount to do with your level of emotional health people who are chronically emotionally healthy these are typically people who just simply will not assume responsibility for their own behavior and let me talk about this for just a minute uh talk about breaking this curse of blame transfer and i want to talk about signs of blame transfer for just a minute there are three signs of blame transfer in marriage and and you're here and maybe you have a problem maybe you have a problem that that you haven't owned up to yet in the relationship and it's causing problems in the relationship and literally see when you're the problem there's nothing your spouse can do i mean they love you they can pray for you but really there's nothing you can do that they can do if you have the problem let me tell you the three signs of blame transfer in marriage and the first is defensiveness you're defensive you're not easily approachable if if your spouse has a problem with you they fear saying something because of your response let me say there are four predictors of divorce and i'm going to give you all four here in just a few minutes defensiveness is the second predictor of divorce and defensiveness means that you do not receive uh you know correction or input from your spouse but defensiveness always means you're the problem the reason that i'm not going to listen to you and let you tell me what's wrong with me is because you're really the problem i'm not the problem you're the problem so defensiveness the opposite of defensiveness is this the opposite of defensiveness is saying to someone i love you and i'm really trying to do my best if i'm doing something wrong would you tell me you know now there are some marriages that have that feature in them but a lot of times in marriage because our sin nature is not to accept responsibility for what we're doing because that's part of our sin nature in most marriages the problems only really surface when it becomes a fight in a real contest in the relationship because i'm not open to being corrected defensiveness is one sign of blame transfer the second is a critical spirit towards your spouse they're the problem is see remember now the devil is the accuser of the brethren the devil's always accusing five ways us to god god to us us to us you to me me to you and me to myself let me say that one more time the devil's always accusing me to god god to me you to me me to you and me to myself he's always accusing he hates happy marriages and so one of the things that the devil is always doing is trying to get you to be convinced that your spouse is the problem and so if you believe that and if you pick up on what he's saying to you you pick up a critical spirit the number one predictor of divorce is a spirit of criticism according to research a spirit of criticism criticism it doesn't mean that you can't say to your spouse there's a problem it doesn't mean you can't complain because complaining isn't criticizing complaining is this is how i feel this this i'd like to talk about this criticism is a spirit of negativity to where you're constantly nitpicking and pointing out your spouse's problems because again i'm convinced that you're the problem i'm convinced that if you would change this marriage could change the number three sign of of being defensive is i'm sorry a blame transfer is a hopeless victim mentality is that you're you're just overwhelmed i mean you just you just can't believe that you know you're in this marriage and by the way let me go back to the second point for just a minute and say the third predictor of divorce is contempt and that means that aged anger not only am i critical now and offended at you but i am now contemptuous toward you and i can't believe i married you and there's a deep bitterness involved the fourth the fourth sign of divorce is stonewalling and stonewalling means resigning yourself from the relationship or an issue that's come up in the relationship it means don't ever talk to me about this again because it's hopeless that's the third sign of being you know a blame transfer is is that you just simply get to a point where you're hopeless and you have a victim mentality and there's nothing that can be done about this this problem let me talk about the curse of blame transfer for just a minute when you when you have a problem in your relationship and you transfer the blame to your spouse here's what happens and the first is the problem is never removed see again remember when karen and i first got married i was the problem i mean karen had problems but i was a major problem in the marriage but because i was convinced it was karen's problem every day that i didn't repent the problem stayed within our marriage understand whatever problem that you have that you won't take responsibility for it stays in the relationship and the bible says romans 6 23 the wages of sin is death everything sin touches it's going to kill including your marriage the second problem with blame transfer is you can't be set free you can't be set free because you're rejecting the truth jesus said in john 8 32 you will know the truth and the truth will make you free well let me let me say something just a minute because some people are absolutely convinced now that their spouse is the problem more than they are and so they they're just they won't give it up because in marriage counseling over the years many people in marriage counseling they just are so convinced and they'll give evidence and evidence listen to me do you realize when adam said to god it's that woman that you gave me do you realize he was right partially it was the woman who started the conversation with the serpent it was the woman who ate the fruit first when god came to adam and he says to him what is this that you've done he told him the truth partially you know what the rest of the truth was adam was commanded by god in genesis chapter 1 to take dominion over every creeping thing that had crept on the earth it was adam's responsibility to chop that snake's head off when he crawled up and started talking back did you know that but he didn't tell that part of the story he didn't say you know lord i was completely irresponsible in not standing up and taking my part in this conversation with the serpent what he did was is he said it's her fault and then when eve said the devil is the one who made me do it she was also partially right the devil came into the garden and he was good at what he did he was a crafty serpent and he came in and he made sin look good and he did everything that he had to do to get her to sin but you know something she was in control of her own will and she didn't have to sin so when they came to god and they said to god the devil made me do it it was that woman that you gave me both of them were telling a partial truth and you know something to the devil half truth is enough he will get you to be convinced he will show you the behavior of your spouse and you will see something that they're doing wrong and case is closed but here's the part here's the point they are doing something wrong in marriage we we both do wrong things but the point is are you willing to take responsibility for your part and if you're not the marriage can never be completely healed because it's always two-sided i've never seen a problem that's one-sided marriage it's always two-sided and if i won't receive the truth i can't be set free and i'm a part of the marriage the marriage can't be set free completely the third problem with this is it destroys the intimacy in our marriage because we're accusing each other adam and eve were wonderful friends they were in harmony together until they sinned and wouldn't take responsibility and now the sudden they're pointing fingers it's hard to be in you know it's hard to be intimate with someone who's always blaming you and accusing you for all the problems in the relationship or for or for yourself if you feel like that that's happening to you here's the other thing that happens with blame transfer it demotivates positive behavior and i want you to listen to me if you would if you're the problem you're the solution there's nothing i can do i it if i am convinced that karen is the problem and i was then what happens is if she's the problem then what can i do i'm i'm just stranded in the relationship it demotivates me to do the right thing can i tell you something that if you will do the right thing it will change your marriage every single time because when you change the marriage changes if you're convinced there's nothing you can do in your relationship to change your relationship you're guilty of this because you're demotivated you're convinced that your spouse has all the problems and if you have all the problems then they have all the answers but you know something if i'm doing two things wrong even if they're not major things wrong i can change the marriage by changing those two things because when i change the marriage changes and it's a good good example to karen the next thing that happens is this whenever you transfer blame it becomes a family tradition it becomes a family pattern for you remember adam and eve when god came to them and said what is this that you've done and they pointed the finger guess what one of their sons killed their other son and god came to him and said where's abel and he said am i my brother's keeper he transferred the blame and this is this is the family pattern of irresponsibility and i want you to listen to me now the thing that makes a mature adult is responsibility not age there are people that are 40 50 and 60 years old but they're still emotionally immature but because they won't take responsibility for their behavior what makes you grown up is taking responsibility the buck stops here i'm taking responsibility for my words regardless of what you say i'm going to take responsibility for what i say regardless of what you do i'm going to take responsibility for what i do that's what makes a mature adult adam and eve were immature and irresponsible and guess what they raised a child just like them and it just perpetuated on so when you point the finger you're going to train your children to do the same thing let me tell you four emotional facts of life and this these are things that are just simply true just like you know the sexual facts of life help us to grow up and realize the reality of maybe sexual facts or whatever these are the four emotional facts of life and when we understand these things and accept these things it helps us to be married to relate to people on a healthy level here's an emotional fact of life number one and that is no external person or event in life controls my level of emotional health or happiness my response to them does let me say it one more time no external person or event in my life controls my level of emotional health or happiness my response to them does in other words life does not form me it has it's not what's happened to me in life that forms me it's my response in life that forms me you understand i'm not in control of what happens to me i'm totally in control of what happens in me 100 of the time i'm not a victim i can do anything that i want to do and so the opposite of this is just kind of a victim mentality you know there's this guy that was at the fast food uh you know restaurant that he sued because they he said they made they made him fat remember it was mcdonald's restaurant and this have you ever had a big mouth jump or big a big a big mac jump in your mouth and you know crawl down your throat or someone from mcdonald's you know ronald mcdonald beats you up and make you eat something is that this guy was so convinced that mcdonald's made him fat in other words just by the mere fact that mcdonald's exists he became fat was wasn't willing to take responsibility for the fact that he pulled into the parking lot he went into the store he ordered the food he sat down and ate it but it was their fault somehow you see this is the victim mentality and understand god commands us whatever happens to us god commands us to make the right response do you know that your bible says that if someone sins against you you have to forgive them 70 times seven don't you hate that i mean really doesn't that stink regardless of what a person does to you god never gives you permission to hate a person am i telling the truth here never you can't control what happens to you but you must control what happens in you and understand god holds us responsible jesus said love your enemies i can't keep a person from from hating me or becoming my enemy i mean i have enemies i wish i could say i didn't have any enemies but i have enemies and jesus says you love your enemies you're not a helpless victim regardless of what they do to you i want you to love them and pray for those who spitefully use you and bless those who curse you i mean god expects us to take responsibility in this area our personal response to pain has a dramatic effect on our maturity and our level of emotional health and what happens to us in life you can't blame anybody else let me say this to you and you may not like this but it is the truth and if you'll accept it it'll help you your parents aren't responsible for how you are today you're responsible your parents didn't form you your response to your parents reformed you let me say this some of you had really good parents but you rebelled against them you know some of you had bad parents and they did things to you and said things to you that weren't right but you have the power to forgive them you have the power to turn to god and become a better person through your pain is this the truth or do we all just lay down and cry for the rest of our lives because of what everybody's done to us is that we have the ability to rise above it let me give you a couple of examples here one is abraham lincoln you know unbelievable man what happened to him in life this is this is the the story of abraham lincoln he had a difficult childhood less than one year of formal schooling he failed in business in 1831 he was defeated for the legislature in 1832 he failed again in business in 1833 he was elected legislature in 1834 his fiancee died 1835. he was defeated for the speaker in 1838 defeated for elector in 1840 and 42 only one of his four sons lived past the age of 18. he was defeated for congress in 1843 he was elected to congress in 1846 he was defeated for congress again in 1848 he was defeated for the senate in 1855 he was defeated for the vice presidency in 1856 he was defeated for the senate in 1858 and he was elected president of the united states in 1860 how many of you would have quit long before but god god was forging the character of one of the most important times in the history of america of this man and it was it was hurt and hurt don't you know that he had to wake up every morning and saying i'm not gonna stop and those people that are voting no for me they just don't know how great i am yet i mean he had to say some good things to himself to keep him to keep himself going rather than after your third child dies before 18 years old is just laying down and saying someone's against me up there and i'm giving up but he did life does not form you it's not what has happened to you in life that has formed you it's your response you have the responsibility i have the responsibility to respond properly to those things and we can rise above those things there was a man named victor frankel a remarkable man who was a prisoner of war during world war ii and he survived in these prison camps when many people around him were dying and here's what he says this is a quote we who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walk through the huts comforting others giving away their last piece of bread they may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from from a man but one thing the last of his freedoms to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one's own way and here's what viktor frankl said in response to the unbelievable brutality of the germans during world war ii he said they can't make me hate them they can do anything they want to me they cannot make me hate them i refuse to hate them and he left alive where many of the other people around him died and not just in the gas chambers but through a broken heart through through just discouragement and just the oppression of the environment but he refused to let those circumstances form him and and some of us are here right now and you still have bitterness over childhood memories or parents or step parents or a previous marriage or a business partner that did you wrong or whatever i'm saying it is controlling you but you have the power to control it it doesn't form you life doesn't form you the past doesn't form you people don't form you you have the power to rise above that and the number one issue of emotional health is getting to the place where we understand i have the ability to respond no other person makes me happy my response to life makes me happy remember the story story of paul and silas in prison and they were singing hymns at midnight they had just been stripped and beaten and falsely accused and in response to being stripped and beaten and falsely accused they went into prison and began to sing and a revival broke out and that's what happens in the worst circumstances we can make the right response and god always responds to it so here's the second emotional fact of life we marry according to our own level of emotional health now i do not want to in the point that i'm about to make i don't want to diminish the fact that god brought you together because i know he did i'm going to make this sound very clinical but it's it's more than that it's it's a spiritual issue but but i want to to talk about why we're attracted to each other and this is my man hand and this is my woman hand okay okay so i'm going to use these like scales just meant health marries health and unhealth marries unhealth it's always true whenever you're looking for someone to marry you're always looking for someone who matches you emotionally and there are several things related to being an emotional match one is dominance and submission and i'm not using submission in a good way i'm saying being being uh willing to submit yourself to someone who's dominating you in an unhealthy way when we're looking for someone to marry we always marry someone who matches our level of dominance or submission there's the issue of codependency it's a person who is very needy emotionally and another person who needs to be needed okay and so if you're a very very emotionally needy person or you're a person who needs to be needed you're going to find someone here and that this is where codependency comes from it's where you find someone who enables destructive behavior is this it's emotionally unhealthy okay so when you're looking for someone to marry let me talk about karen and carry myself for just a minute i was very dominant when i was growing up very i'm a leader type of a personality i have a lot of opinions i have opinions about everything and i just have a naturally dominant kind of personality karen is kind of that golden retriever type you know she's she's not it is dominant but karen had very low self-esteem i had too high of self-esteem i had a lot of hurts i had a lot of insecurities when i was growing up but i masked them through overconfidence in kind of being macho and so when uh when i was dating in high school and this this is the truth uh when i was dating in high school i was always looking for a girl you know that was attractive to me someone that i would go out with and every girl that i felt like was dominant was very unattractive to me it didn't matter what she looked like i didn't care how attractive she was or who she was is that i would look at a girl and i would just kind of size her up and think will i ask her out or not well my my definition of dominance of a dominant female was any woman with an opinion well first of all because i was so insecure but also because i was so dominant well then i met karen and karen had no self-esteem no this is the truth karen's beautiful and she's always been beautiful she thought she was ugly honestly i mean she was obsessed with the fact that she was unattractive she did not believe that god could love her she did not believe that she could be saved and even when we got married she still dealt with tremendous condemnation i mean i could just go on and on and on you can't imagine how low of self-esteem that karen had so when i saw karen the first time i ever saw karen was in biology class in high school and i remember i sat behind her in class and i watched her for a long time and i just kind of studied her and i thought to myself after watching her for a while i would date her i'd marry her because she was so meek and she was so sweet in other words she was safe for someone as dominant as me because i just noticed she's not very aggressive because i did not like aggressive women is that that was not good for me at all so we started dating and we found that we were a perfect match i thought i was god she thought she was the devil it was a perfect match and i mean honestly that's really the way it was so so here's here's what i'm trying to say to you so you're sitting here tonight now health marries health and that is if you're a healthy person you need your spouse in a healthy way you know if you're in this range here you found someone in this range here maybe just a little off-kilter but this is a healthy range if you're a dominant female and and there are many dominant females as our dominant males if you're a dominant female i promise that you married a very sweet natured man who's willing to put up with you well it's just true and because you were attracted to him for the same reason that i was attracted to karen we accommodate each other emotionally if i'm very needy emotionally i need to find someone who needs to be needed i need i need to find someone who will be my rescuer if i'm very dominant i've got to find somebody that'll put up with that whatever it is if i'm an addict and i've got some kind of destructive behavior i've got to find someone who is an enabler and will take responsibility for fixing me rather than forcing me to take responsibility for my behavior see we we health marries health and unhealthy marriage and health and here's what i'm trying to say you can point your finger at your spouse all day long but you're half the equation and here's what happens when we marry by the way i married karen and i i loved her i i know that god put us together but we emotionally accommodated each other because i was extremely dominant she was extremely submissive in a wrong sort of way and we got married and she then began to resent my disrespect of her in the fact that i did not treat her as an equal and she should have resented it i didn't respect karen and the more she acted like this the more frustrated i became and the more i dominated her and disrespected her and the healing in our marriage came when karen began to stand up to me we we were married and uh and i'll talk more about this in another session but we got married and the lord began to heal karen karen began to have quiet times and read her bible and the lord began to heal karen and karen began to stand up to me in a loving way she just wouldn't put up with my disrespect any longer she wouldn't put up with the way that i treated her and she started standing up and when she started standing up to me everything changed because she no longer accommodated my dominance and i had to make a decision one night when i told karen to leave the house because she was standing up to me and i just thought women don't stand up to men like that i was i was just a male chauvinist pig and i just thought you men are better than women men are smarter than women and you're here to take care of me and you shouldn't be talking back and when karen started standing up to me she was getting healthier and she was standing up when she began to do this it it challenged my dominance here and i had to make a decision am i going to change and repent or am i going to force her to submit to me in a wrong way or or leave and thankfully the lord broke through my heart and that began to change in our marriage and so it's always two-sided let me tell you a story that's a shocking story to me i used to have women early because women typically seek marriage counseling it really if it were not for women there would be no marriage counseling really is that thank god for women and but 98 of all counseling in marriage was initiated by women so i'd get a call it was from a woman wanting marriage and so they would come in now when i first started marriage counseling 20 some odd years ago i would have these women come in and they would tell me about their husbands and it was always kind of a real sad story my husband is a laos and he does this and this and this this and so i would listen to him for a while and i would say i want your husband to come in and see me and they and they would say my husband will not come in and see you and i said well i want to talk to your husband i mean there's only so much i can say to you i want to talk to your husband so their husband would come in and many times when that man came in to see me first of all he thought i was just going to let him have it and when i didn't he was kind of surprised many of these men came to the lord many of these men changed in 80 percent of the cases when that happened as soon as the man got saved the woman divorced him okay and it was just shocking to me i just the first time it happened i thought lady i mean goodness gracious he came in got saved and now you're leaving i didn't understand it i'd understand why it was happening the second time it happened i thought does she know that other lady or something i mean what what this is freaky i mean i can't believe this happened twice the third time it happened i'm thinking there i'm doing something wrong here here's the point when you're standing there these ladies and men do the same thing but i'm just saying the ladies came in for marriage counseling first when you're standing there and you're pointing the finger at your spouse and you're saying they're the problem you know what the problem is when these men came in and dealt with their problems they removed the screen that these ladies were hiding behind and now the lord was pointing at their problems it's his problem it's his problem it's his problem and then all sudden he changes and all of a sudden now all of their problems are glaring and rather than taking responsibility for their problems they went and found another man that they could hide behind and blame for all their problems this is what happens i want you to understand something you're telling me that you married someone that is on this imbalance here i'm saying why did you marry them there's something in you that caused you to be willing to do that and let me say this another way to you so you want to put all the blame on your spouse and divorce them that's fine leave the marriage marry again you'll do the same thing again if you don't take responsibility for your problems do you realize that every time a person divorces their chance of divorce goes up ten percent i would be divorced eight times if it were not for the grace of god i would i'm just saying i feel that a tremendous sympathy for people are divorced because we we were on in the process of splitting up when you know the lord broke through my heart but i'm saying you realize if you point your finger at your spouse you're part of this equation and you say well you know my husband's a an addict or whatever this is i'm not saying it's all your fault but i'm saying there's a reason why you've accommodated this there's a reason that you got married at whichever side you're on what happened in in our case was that thankfully i married a godly woman who prayed for me but she was willing to take responsibility for her problems and i was willing to take responsibility for my problems and today we i don't know where we are you know we started this way i was dominant and karen was very you know overly submissive because of her lack of self-esteem and over the years you know i've i've become you know less dominant more humble i'm an extremely humble person and but but what's happened is i think karen's a little too healed now she's kind of dominating me and i she didn't like when i said it but i promise she is a tough gal i'm saying she's healed and we're somewhere in this level we're not perfect but we're somewhere in here and it's wonderful can i tell you regardless of how bad it is it can get real good can i tell you that you're part of the equation don't tell yourself this lie that it's all their fault don't tell yourself that lie because you're going to go all through life disappointed and frustrated believing there's nothing you can do yes you can do you understand this when this person who's being dominant sits down and that's all you have to do it's real easy for dominant people to change because you're so strong-willed and opinionated once you decide to do something it's a done deal that's the great thing about being dominant is this person you have to talk them into it for a long time this person okay well i'm gonna sit down and you realize when you sit down remember when you were a kid and you're on a teeter-totter how you feared what the other person was gonna do next because when they jumped off remember and you're when you change your spouse has to change do you realize if you're frustrated as a woman this is my woman hand excuse me if you're if you're frustrated as a woman because you feel like your husband doesn't do enough doesn't pray enough doesn't do this or this this and you just have a frustration and a disrespect for him and you really are dominant but you justify it because he doesn't do enough or whatever understand when you sit down and begin to treat him is the man that god wants him to be even before he becomes that do you understand when you sit down he'll do this but you can't bark him up get up harry i said you better you better start acting better you know whatever is here he goes subterranean at that level you know and but you know what you can do you can just admit i'm too disrespectful i'm just too dominant i've got an opinion about my opinion and and you sit down you're you're part of the equation okay the third fact of emotional health is the only way that we can change people around us in a positive manner is to take responsibility to change ourselves and to do the right thing first let me say it again the only way that we can change people around us in a positive manner is to take responsibility to change ourselves and to do the right thing first it's it's literally to be the redeemer in the relationship and i've already talked about this but i want to say it another way real quick the bible tells women in first peter 3 that you can change your husband without a word as they observe your chaste behavior and all it's saying there is because the lord's going to bless it is that if you will do the right thing first you can change your husband i want to talk about me for just a minute in in my response to karen the bible says in first corinthians 11 that that men are the glory of god but women are the glory of man it's an interesting statement it literally means men reflect the god they believe in but women reflect the man they've chosen women are the reflection of the men in their lives and they really are and see when i first realized that i didn't like it because i used to come home and karen karen wasn't happy and karen had a sour look on her face that i couldn't get off and she was a godly gracious woman but there was an unhappiness on karen because of our marriage and she treated me much better than i deserved but i kept trying to lecture her or to do something to change her and then i then i realized one day through the scriptures that she was my glory she was my reflection and i always blamed her i always tried to beat her down to get her to to you know accept her fault and then one day i woke up and i thought this this was a new revelation to me that changed our marriage and i thought to myself if karen is not the way that i want her to be there must be something wrong with the way i'm treating her because she's my glory she's my reflection and that's the way i started to think so karen would say something to me the bible says in ephesians 5 that men are supposed to nourish and cherish their wives as the lord does and i realized that when something went wrong i didn't take responsibility to nourish and karen out of it i just pointed my finger at her and said i don't like the way you're talking to me i don't like the way you're doing this i don't like the way you're doing this and i would begin to accuse her until i changed and when i changed and i do this to this day when karen and i are having problems when i'm frustrated with karen i have a new way of thinking and my new way of thinking is this what am i doing wrong that's what i think to myself what am i doing wrong and a lot of times i'll sit there and i'll think i've been so obsessed with work lately you know i haven't been romantic to her i haven't i haven't been as nice to her and kind to her as i need to be i haven't sent her flowers i haven't taken any place special and i'll think to myself i really need to sharpen up here there's a gardener mentality and there's a consumer mentality in marriage a gardener walks up to a garden and sees things that don't look good and a gardener thinks to himself you know something i need to put better fertilizer in that bed you know i need to i need to kind of dig around those flowers i need to reposition those things a gardener looks at it and he takes responsibility for the way it is and he knows he can change it a consumer mentality is i bought the wrong flower i'm going to take it back and get another one i take no responsibility for the state of that garden except that i must have bought the wrong thing a consumer mentality in marriage just says i married the wrong person you didn't turn out the way i want you to you've got way more problems than i thought before i married you it's just like they you know your problems are having babies and i'm so frustrated and so i'm going to go find me another one rather than the gardening mentality but you understand now that the bible says to women that without a word you can change your husband as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior and it says to men that we're to nourish and cherish our wives those are agricultural terms the word nourish means to feed to maturity and the word cherish means to protect that process diligently and i submit to you when women act the right way and when men cherish their wives everything changes in marriage and if you're only doing your part it changes the marriage because god honors the person who's willing to do the right thing first i love what joyce meyer says the best person does the right thing first are you the best person in the marriage if you are you'll prove it by doing the right thing first here's the fourth emotionally emotional fact of life emotionally healthy people can act positively in spite of the behavior of others emotionally unhealthy people are followers responders and victims and this is why they live in the vicious cycle of bad relationships you know you look at jesus you look at a lot of the people in the bible but you look at jesus jesus you realize when jesus was hanging on the cross that first of all he forgave the people who put him there and you realize also when jesus was hanging on the cross he looked down at his mother and he said woman behold your son and he looked at the apostle john and said son behold your mother you realize on the cross when they were doing all these things to jesus he was taking care of his mother in the process regardless of what they were doing to him jesus was doing the right thing on the cross and you looked through the bible it you know marvelous people in the bible that were emotionally and spiritually healthy they were able to forgive in spite of what people were doing for them they were able to give when no one else was giving to them they were able to preach the gospel and to follow god's will for their lives even when they weren't being received and they were being persecuted emotionally healthy people people who take responsibility they're able to do the right thing when everybody else is doing the wrong thing they're not blamers they're not victims it's like regardless of what you do to me i'm going to do the right thing because i'm able to do that in the next session i'm going to talk to you about the mother of all emotional issues the most important thing that gives us the power to act that way but i want to say this in closing this session the rest of your life have especially in family relationships will be determined by the fact that you are willing or unwilling to take responsibility for your own behavior in marriage i can tell you it's always two-sided and the person who is willing to look at their side to take responsibility for their behavior and to change these are the people who are the healthiest people in marriage they're also the people who can redeem their spouse and change the relationship but the worst marriages are between two people like adam and eve and something happens wrong because we are you know imperfect beings and rather than taking responsibility for it they point their finger at the devil they point their finger at their parents they point their finger at their spouse they point their finger at their boss it's always someone else's problem but i'm just saying to you i'm thanking god here tonight that regardless of what happens to me that i cannot control i'm absolutely in control of what happens in me and when i make the right responses it helps me to build healthy relationships i want you to buy your heads with me if you would father in jesus name i pray right now that we would be able to see ourselves properly not in an unhealthy or unattractive light but lord all the deception if there is any deception on us that causes us to be defensive and not be willing to accept what others are saying to us if it causes us to be critical of our spouse constantly believing that they're the problem if it causes us to be hopeless and to feel like we're victims there's nothing we can do to change this because it's all somebody else's fault lord tonight help us to break that bondage that mental bondage that sin nature that so damages our relationships and our marriages in jesus name holy spirit i'm asking you to help all of us here tonight to begin to be emotionally healthy people and i know many are already very emotionally healthy but if there's any of this in us break it god so that we can become more healthy and that we can begin to love each other and to live in relationships the way you want us to and i'm asking lord for for every marriage those that are here those that are listening on tape those that are watching on television i'm praying god for miracles in marriages marriages that are just so bitter so far gone just like just like ours was i'm praying god that you would give those marriages tonight just a touch of grace just the ability lord to forgive to repent to be willing to go forward and to try again but not pointing the finger god but honestly accepting responsibility for our own behavior i'm asking that lord you

Channel: Jerome Castañeda

Views: 183,075

Rating: 4.8434496 out of 5

Keywords: Marriage (Marriage/union Type), Wedding

Id: na0jkKzERmM

Length: 48min 43sec (2923 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2013