Guarding Your Heart in Marriage

yo what's up this is another episode of 30 minutes with perry's 30 minutes with a berry you always gotta break out the song that's your thing i actually need to stop uh singing flat and and off-key because that's embarrassing to my uh enneagram three vibes so yeah i need to get better at that and you're actually a decent singer every time i can carry a tune you can carry a tune and people don't even know that no you should go ahead and bust one out for the people i'll pass come on back no that's that's cool like like jackie she be walking around the house and she like straight like legit be hitting notes i'm like you can like sing if you actually like no i think if i got lessons i could probably i can i can get away with some things i i could be like drake you know drake ain't hitting no runs and stuff like that but he's he's like in pitch all the time god gave jackie like 90 gifts [Applause] straight up and down anywho uh me and preston were watching the series on netflix the the series will go unnamed uh but there was this um part of the show where this guy who's married him and his wife were going through some things some dang things some stuff and you know it was causing tension and disconnection in the marriage and while he was at work one of his co-workers was kind of around him like around his desk and there was like this odd energy in the scene yeah it was this odd energy where they kind of liked being around each other but they weren't saying that and like they were kind of like lingering and like never saying nothing like you know explicitly bogus but it was kind of like so oh y'all need to stop that and i paused and i told preston i said that right there is how people get caught up in all kinds of mess because they don't guard their heart in marriage because jackie will pause the show in a minute i have to get my id out from one scene and like preach a mini sermon and then press play i got to get it out i had to get that out like hey okay and so i was like man this would be a good podcast topic about how to guard your heart in marriage we haven't only seen it you know on tv we've seen it in real life as well everybody yeah you know like there's there's there's so much opposition spiritually uh to the unity that god intends for two people to have i'm saying yeah and so like i don't know what let's first say what does it mean to guard your heart even the bible says guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life i think i've messed that verse up probably but the bible tells us to guard ourselves what is that just practically what does that mean yeah i think it means to to to do the necessary things um that we need to not put ourselves in positions where we would have to choose sin over righteousness you know what i'm saying um because i think a lot of times um sin starts with us putting ourselves in a position where something might look enticing or might be tempting and so it's like man you you're not really guarding your heart if you go to a place where women are going to be all loosey-goosey when you've dealt with lusts in the past yeah it's like guarding your heart is this you know if you know that you struggle with gluttony guarding your heart would be like huh i probably shouldn't go to golden corral today right or when the christmas cream like ready sign hot sign is on let me keep driving you probably yeah you probably just got to keep driving and don't look right yeah like you're not guarding your heart because you put yourself in a position to be tempted absolutely unnecessarily right so a party guard in your heart is a self-awareness knowing what's enticing knowing what triggers you knowing what could lead you astray from truth the gospel god your spouse whatever and moving accordingly okay so now when we apply that to marriage guarding your heart and marriage means put never putting yourself in the position to sin against god and sin against your spouse guarding yourself from whatever would break that commitment that you made yeah yeah uh that's good i think also too what guarding our hearts can look like is doing the best we can to not um to not always compare our spouses with other people so that's a way to guard your heart yeah yeah and so like if your spouse falls short in this area to not always look at men who excel where your spouse uh kind of fails at times oh yeah uh because i think that kind of like oh you know such and such does this why you don't do this yeah no like that person that that that's probably excelling in the area probably didn't always excel in the area they they they were able to grow i think a part of that temptation to compare your spouse to another person is like covetousness a little bit where it's like you do xyz wrong i think homeboy did or does xyz right i wish you were homeboy or homeboy was you yeah you know what i'm saying absolutely and that that literally is when you start going there it starts to get a little bad because you know why what that does is it starts to make you just discontent with the person you're married to absolutely and that all types of sin can come out of that yeah and so and i think the devil is so crafty he he works with our our impatience and he works with the things that we covet right and the devil is the type of lame that would send the right person along that will give you the attention or uh will impress you in ways that your spouse doesn't and leads you away lead your heart away from from from your spouse uh when the actuality it's just not fair right because you don't know like this person that you're super impressed with right you don't know what process they went through you know what i'm saying and you don't know them right let's be clear i was watching uh i told you about this while watching i watched this old episode of oprah on youtube it's probably still on there and she had a a a round table with men who had cheated on their wives that was the first episode the second episode was a round table with women who were mr mistresses and it was so interesting i think i remember seeing something like that when i was little because she kept asking all these men why did they cheat and they would be like you know basically like the the mistress like every time i would come over she would cook for me she would listen to me she wasn't you know uh you know nagging and all of this like she basically gave him everything they wanted in their wife and the crazy thing i was like they're so deceived though because if they were to get in a relationship with these women and be around this woman she would also become the same way as your wife because she's a human being like she's giving you all of this because you're only seeing each other two hours a week right you don't even know her you know like you're not even committed to her like she's only giving you a little bit yeah and so to expect that your mistress will not also become just i don't know you know what i'm saying yeah basically what you're trying to say is like our impatience and our in our our lack of content makes us not content and delusional delusional and not content in who we're with and so we we find what we're missing in other people not realizing that if we get into a relationship with this other person they're going to they got problems exactly the grass ain't never greener the grass ain't never going on the other side and so but the the devil and our sinfulness would like to convince us that it is because we're impatient and we don't want to grow up with the people that we're with hello we don't want to work i get it though like obedience is hard i think another way to guard your heart well i'll say this i think in light of the whole covetous covetousness piece and the discontentment is being careful even when it comes to social media yeah like who you follow absolutely um because i think that could breed some like jealousy and all types of stuff where you see like you know this dude taking this wife out on all these trips and got roses on the bed which is a hot mess anyway because who can clean it up getting her chocolate so you like he don't never take me on trips he don't never put roses on my bed he don't never but it's like but he paying your bills and he he rubs your back and he takes care of your children and he's faithful at church like he may not be able to be uber romantic but he's responsible yeah you know what i'm saying like so like there's always something good that covetousness will keep you from actually seeing yeah that's really good and that's that's really good i think social media is a is uh a really big piece especially when it comes to men because i think uh men we tend um not always but typically we tend to be very visual people and so a lot of times we can even grow a discontentment of our wives seeing you know different women's body types right and different women you know looking a certain way um and so like i i think that sometimes like you said we have to really watch who we who we follow on social media because it can become a thing but also too i think one thing that can help um us guard our hearts and marriage is dealing with the trauma of our past explain i say dylan with the trauma of our past because i think what happens is sometimes we we can get into marriage um and not and not dealt with the the trauma of our past and i think what happens is when we when we get married this person who becomes the closest person to us has the power to affect us in ways that nobody in the world can right um you're more vulnerable in this relationship than any other relationship in the world and so i think a lot of times with men and women right is that the moment our spouses disappoint us it triggers like this lifelong trauma that we had even before we got in this marriage and we seek outside sources to satisfy us uh instead of instead of not dealing with no like your wife disappointed you or your husband disappointed you not because what they did to you was so detrimental is that you never dealt with a little hurt boy my god in you my god you never you never dealt with that little hurt girl in you yeah yeah you came into marriage with all this bondage yeah and the moment they disappointed you it felt like it felt like the world yeah you know what i'm saying and i've seen a lot of men do that that you know when they when their women reject them it's like you know what you have done is you have associated this rejection with all of your mommy hurt and so what you do you go look and find a woman that won't reject you in the same way that you're my god so dealing with your trauma and say man your your your rejection of me makes me feel like when my mom abandoned me right and instead of dealing with that and becoming a whole person you want to go outside your marriage yeah i mean that is a way to guard your heart is to trace the feeling to its source absolutely right so one of my um triggers with you is to feel like if you i don't know if you say jackie can you go do x y and z if it feels like you are trying to control me i will always resist it which will look like or be a form of un like being unsubmissive right right and what somebody could say oh she's just a rebellious woman i've had to trace back to being abused and not wanting to feel like a man was trying to control me right and so now i have to go i have to like go back to that place and say okay god this this is this is the wound this is some pain mixed with some sin i need to help you help me to not like feel like preston is trying to control me when really he's just asking me can i close the refrigerator because it's a difference between your your wife deeply wounding you and your wife triggering wounds that you've never dealt with yes it's a difference yikes wow whoa it's a difference truth bomb and so and so mike dropped right it's a difference and so what what i'm not saying is that she didn't sin against you i'm not saying that she didn't hurt you in some type of way a form of fashion what i am saying is how deeply you were affected points to something way deeper yeah yeah yeah is that it's that unhealed version of yourself that you've never dealt with and so you're looking for a woman that will not disappoint you in the same way or who won't reject you in the same way who will rub your back when your wife said no and it's like nah bro your wife ain't really the problem you're the problem in in an earlier episode we had a real small banter about fragility and this isn't to boo-boo oh man but i just think i think we need to address the emotional fragility of men because i see adultery on the part of a man as a weakness you are a weak man if you cannot withstand rejection to the point that you are willing to betray your spouse your family and your god just to be coddled that's a problem to me well you disagree um that's weak um 50 50 i disagree with you okay what's the other feature so i think i don't i don't i don't think okay let me say this i'm not saying that it's not a form of weakness i just think that it's deeper than that of course it is right and and what what i mean is i think a a word that kind of fits better with me and my mind is wounded a person who is wounded hear me out a person who is wounded and a person who is never given the tools to learn how to deal with their wounds now i do think that the the the point of you feeling like you have to go outside of your marriage to to to cheat on somebody is trash which is weak but i'm saying the motive no it is a weakness because you are unable to withstand temptation oh yeah absolutely that's a weakness okay now i get what you're saying i get what you're saying yes so you are so fragile to the point that because she said no you cannot withstand you can't endure it you can't you can't you can't you can't you can't handle it your identity is breaks apart so it's like oh i gotta go out and do this so i can feel like a man again that's not manhood that's little boy behavior yeah and i feel like i feel like we got to just call it for what it is and i understand that the context is that a lot of men have not been discipled or fathered to be actual men like even c.s lewis said how like people humans because they have not because they always give in to temptation that it really reveals how weak and how fragile they actually are versus jesus who endured temptation for 33 years and never once submitted to it that's actual manhood yeah that's actual strength absolutely and so i'm done boo boo and on man but i just i'm just saying yeah i i do think i do think that it is um um weakness you know what i'm saying which which we're all kind of born weak right uh and we're born loving the things that god hates and hating the things that god loves i think the problem comes in when men when society teaches us that um a real man is not rejected by women right so i think a lot of that plays into society teaching men that you know a woman a woman shouldn't reject you a woman she wants you all the time and yada yada yada and so when your wife rejects you you feel like she's rejected your whole being she's just tired yeah you know what i'm saying um she just thought raising your kids her back just hurt you know what i'm saying and so we want to go outside you know our marriage because yeah we yeah but i agree it's weakness i think on the other end uh i appreciate that i think on the other end though me and preston were talking about this it's not to say that women don't commit adultery because they do that's i was just about to ask you that but i'm not letting y'all off the hook don't but i do think that from my experience women are less likely to ch cheat on a man because of their hurt but what i do see is that they will begin to withhold their time and emotional energy as a response so if a woman feels rejected if a woman feels unsafe if a woman is frustrated she most likely will not go entertain a man or pull up a porn pornography video and some do so this isn't like a monolith but it is what i've seen and experienced is that you know you're just not gonna get a lot of energy from me and so if i have a job i'm gonna put a lot of my energy into that job if i know how to make money i'm put a lot of my energy into making my committing adultery but cheating on your husband with your work potentially yeah my and but not even my work just my time and my emotional availability i'll become more emotionally available to my friendships and not you and so i think that's one way for a woman to kind of numb herself is to simply just be like oh that's what we're doing cool so how can a woman guard her heart to prevent that you got one you gotta notice when it's happening like because some of it is a is a is a coping mechanism that you might be used to so you don't even know when it's happening you know and so you i think you have to become aware of yourself where it's like oh i'm starting to withdraw so like identifying that and then immediately going to the father help god i feel myself wanting to close myself from my husband out of fear because that's what's under it is i don't want to be hurt so i need to close off myself so you can't wound me again but what happens is as i close off myself so i don't get wounded i also close up close close off myself from the ability to love you and so i can't i can't guard myself and love you at the same time which is mad frustrating i hope this question makes sense do you do you think there is what are the what are the the practical implications we can we can we can do in each other's lives to help each other spouses yeah spouses to help each other guard like so for for example if you know that your husband i i don't think it's a woman's job to coddle uh their husband in a way that would uh comfort yes i don't know comfort not cotto right um she shouldn't do the necessary things in her marriage so her husband wouldn't cheat that shouldn't be her burden right he should go to god with that right and and have a conviction from god but do you think that that that there is uh uh a concern that we should have with saying man i shouldn't just want my husband to to guard his heart uh around other women of being tempted around other women is it something that i can do as a woman that can assist him uh and help him or do you think it solely falls on us to guard our own hearts and marriage because because a lot of men that i've talked to have said things along the lines of like um yeah i know it's my own sin when i look at this woman or when i fantasize about this woman but i feel like when my wife is having sex with me or my wife is not rejecting me so much it's not as a it's not as much of a temptation yeah i think we're all continual products of nature and nurture it is our nature to sin uh it is our nature to go against god's design and act out in all kinds of ways uh yet at the same time god has given us a new nature where we are supposed to resist that and put it to death right but we also are products of nurture which is how we were raised the culture we grew up in the neighborhood we have the family line uh that we come in and this nurture even exists in marriage am i nurturing my husband in such a way that leads him or helps him to choose god or am i nurturing my husband in such a way where i'm continually sinning against him so he's sinning against me in response and so i do think it's both that's really good it's both that's really good because a lot of men and i think i think men are much more complex individuals than society gives us credit for sure because you're made in the image of god right right because they will paint this picture i think i kind of said this on another podcast they would paint this picture that were just sexual beings but it's like no like a man just a man wants to be feel nurtured and love and affection too you know uh and a woman does too because that's that's that that's getting to what the whole point is is that we are really really really needy people yes all of us as human beings we are we are needy we want love we want comfort we want affection we want security yeah um and and what happens is like you said earlier is because i've given you myself in marriage the pain hurts that much deeper yeah and so i'm tempted to act out in crazier ways because of that that vulnerability but i think at the end of all of this or at the bottom of all of it all of this is that we need to develop a reverence and a fear from god because i think sometimes we could like land the plane on love your spouse so that your spouse will love you back or honor your spouse which is all good and well yeah but i have to love god more than i love you yeah because if i don't love god more than i love you what happens when i stop loving you yeah i'm more tempted to sin against god and so it has to there has to be some inner integrity so that i'm guarding my heart in private like i'm guarding my heart in ways that you will never know or never see because i'm first and foremost honoring the lord and this is the reason why you know i don't know if this is getting a little off topic of guarding our hearts but this is the reason why women and men of god please do not be tempted to fall in love with somebody who does not love jesus because when that love for you kind of fades they have no other love to fall on yeah no strength no strength to follow the spirit and so that that's that's one way in which we can guard our hearts as christians we have we have a consistent standard to look to i don't hurt you yeah simply because you know uh you know i i love you i i i don't hurt you because i have a moral standard to look to right and even when i do hurt you any like like i i i'm not just affected because you're affected i'm affected because god is affected that i hurt his image buried what i'm saying and so it's just that's it it's a more that's just more weight you know what i'm saying on it because if it takes it takes some my renewal but when you start to trace the way you treat your spouse to your relationship with god is a game changer yeah because then you see oh the way i treat my spouse literally is a outworking of what i believe about god and so like yes accountability thumbs up yes uh putting you know uh the little control things on on your computer do that yes like going to marriage retreats and all the things i think all of that helps but it will only help in so far as you love god yeah and so like a part of the whole thing is let me start to stir up my affections for god so that i'm really really like out here walking in holiness at all times because because in guarding your heart you can put all of those parameters in place yeah but if you don't if you don't if your heart ain't changed you're gonna do the same thing right and you're gonna find hurdles to you know you're gonna jump over those hurdles you're gonna jump over those you know those things and so god has to be the standard of god is not the standard of what we uh uh get our our morality and our moral standard from like it's gonna be so hard to guard your heart in marriage because we don't have a we don't have a moral standard of goodness and so we have to consistently look towards the one who is good and we have to be affected by the things that affect his heart if we if we're if we're not affected yeah it's gonna be really hard to guard our hearts legit okay let me say this and then we get close i i think um a really important part okay so psalms one says uh blessed are those who walk not in the counsel of the wicked nor sit in the seat of scoffers or stand in the way of sinners and i i mention that psalm because who we do life with mainly our friends like that is a way to guard our heart too and so that's really good how what would you like how would you say your male friend like what are okay i'll say this so good are there particular male friendships that you will not engage with yes and particular male friendships that you will engage with that have served you and your marriage i'm so glad that you asked this question wife you're welcome because we i was just having a conversation with the guy uh my my friend yesterday about this and we were on the phone and we was talking about his wife um and uh he said something and i uh i kind of corrected him i want to say what he said or whatever but i corrected him and he was like man i'm so glad you're my friend he was like because uh uh i used to have friends who would just like let me uh just talk about my wife and not giving me a different perspective but like show me the things in my heart that i need to change you know what i'm saying uh and he does the same thing for me and i have like six or seven good male friends that that do that for me you know ezekiel like i have like you know and so uh i i don't even dudes who who have a certain um way of of thinking and due to god say something you told me a long time ago yeah yeah when we were in chicago you were talking to we were talking about somebody and you was like you know i can't rock with him and i was like why and you you were like because he never talks about his wife yes he never honors his wife absolutely and i was like huh that's that's that's what i was that's what i was just about to say yeah even even how like when i first became a christian and i first started to go in christian circles right and um i started to be around popular christians non-popular christians meeting meeting people a lot i started to notice that the men who were more who who were the most emotionally healthy were the people who celebrated their wives and talked about their wives in such an honor and what a honoring way and the men who didn't [Music] i started to see red flags that said man maybe you won't be beneficial for me as a close friend and you remember that person is divorced now yes yeah and so there there there is there is a man now a type of man now that i become cool with faster when they have a deep um reverence for god and a deep honoring for their wife that lets me that that lets me know that man if i if i become friends with this dude he's going to encourage me to honor and love my wife right and so it's it's been times where i've been around men like that and i have left convicted to to to be a better husband and to into it's a fleet temptation yeah right about being around them yeah you know what i'm saying um that was one of the things that you know when we had dinner with uh uh not the name drop kirk franklin oh yeah the way he talked about his wife my goodness yeah like people were like oh you know like well you you got to meet me kirk franklin you know what i'm saying you got he literally talked about tammy no like literally he didn't talk about none of his hits he didn't talk about none of his grammys he just talked about how he loved his wife and it was encouraging for me as a young man to see an older man still in love with his wife you know what i'm saying and not only did he talk about his wife but he talked about the leadership that he had to be under you know what i'm saying for years that that helped him be content and to help him grow and to help him be stretched in order to grow in a certain you know space with his wife over the course of years and so yeah that's a great question because i think who we surround ourselves around uh will help us guard our hearts and help us honor our spouses in a way uh that can that can help us have longevity in our marriage yeah and i think the same for women i think uh women have to be mindful and discerning about being in friendship with and having conversations with people that is also equally honoring because i do think it's a temptation and some of it is is needed some of it is needed to say hey homie is frustrating me in this way but you need to have a friend who will help you to not just land on the frustration but also moving towards how to serve and pray for and help your husband in light of the way he's frustrating you yeah you know what i'm saying because i think conversations with women can be real specific and therefore highly critical and so you don't want to get in the habit of always criticizing your spouse just because it doesn't it doesn't serve you in the long run and so i do think i think friendships are hugely important and how we guard ourselves because there's this one couple we knew uh the the wife is just you know doing a lot you know just showing out on social media you know showing skin and and doing a lot and just being you know highly disrespectful to her husband and i said i wonder what kind of friend she has and then i found out the friend she has and i said that makes sense because i knew that that individual was somebody that was gassing that behavior and not putting water on it and saying nonsense like don't sin against your spouse even in the way you speak yeah and if a man doesn't have men in their life um who will consistently challenge them when they start to complain about their wives or try to complain about what their wives are not doing uh and never have a friend to say man maybe you've been a little bit domineering right here maybe you need you need to stop being as controlled bro you know like you know you need to be more patient uh it'll be real hard for us to to not you know to to not guard our hearts when someone comes around and and offers us all the things that you know that that we love and we want when we think the whole issue is our wives and not us you know yeah and so yeah uh what's that golden girl song no i don't know the golden girl i don't i don't know that song but i do know you got a friend in me you got a friend in me wow bye that wasn't no no it wasn't trying to play peace [Music]

Channel: With The Perrys

Views: 253,101

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Id: 9AJCu5qE04I

Length: 32min 47sec (1967 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 14 2022