Inhibitors to Experiencing Intimacy | The MarriageToday Podcast | Jimmy and Karen Evans

[Music] welcome to marriage day podcast i'm jimmy evans this is my wife karen this podcast exists to help every couple succeed in marriage and today karen we're talking about inhibitors to intimacy in marriage the things that you know intimacy is the prize that's what we want uh but there are things that happen in our marriage that keep us from being enemies we're going to go to the teaching that i'm doing here in just a few minutes but before we do that we're going to answer some questions from you guys some of our viewers and i'm going to read this one to you first of all um it says it feels like my husband has lost interest in me and our marriage we're acting more like roommates at this point in our lives is there anything i can do to get his attention that's a good question well besides walking into the room completely naked but you know i think probably i would start with communication you know because that's one of the hardest things in a marriage is good communication and if your communication is not good if you're not talking about how you're feeling if you're not talking about the needs you have and right you know and so i would suggest just sitting down and having just a normal conversation of like you you and i do we say all the time is there anything i can do to improve is there something that i'm not doing is are you okay you know and you know just have those important questions of how do you think we're doing right now in our marriage well they're obviously not okay no i mean you know if he's ignoring her basically he's not okay he could be distracted he could be offended you know he could be tempted he could be maybe he has an offense maybe he's not hasn't forgive her for something yeah i think you're exactly right i think talking and just face-to-face talking the other thing karen that we talk about is redemptive love and and that's just simply means when your spouse is doing the wrong thing for you to pursue them anyway and so you when when one spouse kind of goes into their corner and the other spouse goes into their corner no one fights for the marriage and so what one of the things you did early in our marriage when we had a bad marriage is you you pursued me you you pursued me when i didn't deserve to be pursued and that really uh it it got us off the the hump you know and so i think that's that's a good idea i think you have a question for me there yes my wife and i have a good marriage but we handle things in different ways how can we fix our differences and get on the same page well you're always going to be different i don't you know i think that the expectation of not we're different we've been married almost 48 years what is different um i think the main thing is you have a good marriage but you handle things in different ways well you're much more emotional than me and i'm not saying that in a bad way i'm just saying i'm not as emotional so i just deal with things in a matter-of-fact way you're more emotional okay and so i don't think that's going to change i don't think there'll ever be a day in our marriage where you're i mean so you learn to you learn to respect each other you learn to deal with your differences in a good way what do you think no i think it's perfect i think that you know first of all it's not wrong to be different like what i'm saying that's right and so i think they need to respect that they're both bringing something to the table that's just as important that's right you know whether they're it's different or not it's like they're they're a team and so what they're doing is is making their marriage special i think anyway well i just i think the expectation that uh we're going to be married this this amount of time and we're going to be the same is a wrong expectation i think you're going to be married for this length of time and if you're successful you learn to respect each other's differences and you know the when we first got married i didn't know i just don't i didn't know anything about women and i just thought you were strange but you're a normal woman and so you're still as different today as you were then but the difference is i respect it and so i i if you say you have a good marriage that's that's the big deal right there and to keep your marriage good i just think you just learn to respect each other's differences some of your differences can kind of come together you know but most of most of our differences are inherent they're just our personalities our giftings our perspectives being men and women you know being the opposite sex and you just have to learn to to to deal with it and the other thing is to have a good marriage you have to meet needs that you don't have you know you have to come into your spouse's world and there will never be a day when you wake up and you both have the same needs you know some of your needs may be the same but most your needs are not the same so anyway we hope that that helps we're going to go into this teaching on inhibitors of intimacy we hope you enjoy it the more morally depraved a society becomes the more outwardly focused they have to become because they don't have anything to go to inwardly and so in our society because we have become a very morally depraved society the more that happens the more we focus on the outside rather than the inside believing if everything on the outside is right i'm going to experience everything i'm looking for it's exactly the opposite if everything on the inside is right i'm going to experience what i want and so you're going to hear me in this message talk about the issue of inhibitors but you're also going to hear me talk about ethics every time i mention an inhibitor of intimacy i'm going to talk about an ethic of intimacy because ethics of the word ethic means a system of principles governing morality and acceptable conduct in other words when karen and i act in our marriage it's based on the the ethic of our marriage there's just an ethos in your marriage whether you realize it or not that allows and disallows that causes certain things to happen and keep certain things from happening so when karen and i got married we had no intimacy i mean we had sex we had no intimacy again because it wasn't going to happen from the outside in the way i thought it was going to it was going to happen from the inside out when we began to change on the inside when god began to change us on the inside that is when we began to experience the the intimacy that we have today now number one inhibitor of intimacy is lack of spiritual dependence and another way to say that is unrealistic expectations unrealistic expectations set us up for failure in marriage and marriage on the rock uh there are several sessions in that but especially the most important issue in marriage if you want to go deeper in this point it's in marriage on the rock okay two very common expectations that people have when they get married is this you're going to make me happy and you're going to meet my needs okay and so we get married and we think i'm going to get married and you're going to make me happy and you're going to meet my needs well the first is is this your spouse cannot meet your deepest needs okay you have four needs in your life that only god can meet acceptance identity security and purpose and god meeting those needs in you is the basis of your happiness i love karen and i'm so happy with karen but i could be happy without karen karen loves me and she's happy with me but she could be happy without me because of jesus and if if we say to another person you're my life and i can't live without you that is a codependent statement and i love karen i don't want to live without karen but the point is jesus makes me happy not other people and if if your happiness depends on people then then you're literally just at the at the whim of how people are acting that particular day let me say this in the midst of people who aren't doing what i want them to do i can still be happy because of jesus acceptance identity security and purpose he accepts me for who i am i don't have to have whiter teeth and fresher breath or six-pack abs you know i have washboard abs i just have a load of towels in right now they're so precious to me i cover them with padding and but jesus accepts me for who i am right now so acceptance identity i he made me in my mother's womb and he knows my real name your real name you get when you go to heaven you'll get a white stone with your real name on it because the name you have right now is not your real name when god made you in your mother's womb he gave you a name that nobody else has and part of the beauty of knowing god is he knows who you really are he knows why he no person can tell you who you are only god can tell you who you are so your sense of identity has to come from god if you're going to be whole and really live your life correctly security only god can make us truly secure no army can make us truly secure no medicine can make us truly secure no weapon can make us truly secure but the spirit of god can make us truly secure and purpose i have a higher purpose for life than making a buck and spending it i have a higher purpose of life than just going through another 24 hours of biological processes i lived for a king and a kingdom and when i wake up every day i do something that makes an eternal difference in people's lives that's the purpose of my life acceptance identity security and purpose only god can meet those needs and it's called the principle of transference if i don't depend on god to meet those needs i automatically transfer the expectation of that to my spouse jesus came to a woman at the well of and water there he was using water as the backdrop of having a conversation with her as a marriage counselor she had five marriages that failed and she wasn't being honest with her but jesus about it he said go call your husband and she said i don't have a husband he said i know you've had five and the one you live with now is not your husband she said sir i perceive you're a prophet yeah they're in the bible there ought to be a little duh right at the end of that senate show duh and so lady if you knew who you were talking to if you knew the gift of god i'd give you a drink you'd never be thirsty again she was trying to get her soul needs met from a man and when the men in her life could not water her soul and make her feel full and satisfied she thought there was something wrong with him and she went through five husbands now she was living with a guy and jesus walked up to this woman and said if you know who you're talking to if you knew the gift of god because it's free to any person when we need god the most we're deserving the least we're a mess when we need him the most right so this woman's a mess five-time loser in marriage jesus loves her he knows the root issue of her life and he walks up and says lady if you would just ask me to fill your heart i would and you'd never be thirsty again and out of that fullness you're happy and out of that fullness you love other people and you become a functional person the ethic that fixes this is faith in god when karen and i got married we we were fledgling christians but we were squeezing each other trying to get god out and it was so frustrating and i remember just feeling like why why can't she build up my ego more why why can't she praise me more why why didn't she make me feel like somebody why didn't she just and she was thinking the same thing about me and literally we were trying to squeeze god out of each other and killing each other in the process and when i say that we wake up in the morning and go to the different sides of the house and have our quiet time that's where the lord fills us up and out of that we love each other and out of that we're happy codependency means i'm depending on you in an unhealthy way i'm putting expectations on you that you can't meet there are needs in your life that your spouse can meet but your god needs they they can't meet and so faith in god is an ethic in this marriage listen i depend on god to meet my deepest needs and i depend on god to solve my biggest problems and i'm not going to put that expectation on you i have my god is a big god and i'm going to put faith in him compatibility in marriage is is based on core values more than anything else character and core values but we're very different if you're very very compatible with your spouse you're you're very different people when karen and i got married i just thought she's so weird because she's not like me and we we got in all these fights because we rejected each other's differences you have different love needs the men need uh the four major needs of a man honor is number one sex number two friendship with his wife wants to be buddies and domestic support women are not at all like that not that they don't have any of those needs number one need of woman is security number two is open and honest communication number three is soft non-sexual affection and number four is leadership not being dominated they want their husband to be the initiator of the well-being of the home all four of our major needs are different when you tell me i need you to do this this is this is what i need you to do i need you to do this i'm going to believe you see for years karen here's what i tell people when they come to see me for counseling your spouse has been trying to tell you for years what their needs are you just haven't listened because we have this idea that if we marry our soul mate they're just like us we you know everything's just alike that's not true if you marry your perfect soul mate you're very different people you're not alike and so you have to listen and i'm going to respect you with my mouth but i'm going to respect you with my mind and when you're talking and my eyes begin to cross and i'm thinking how in the world could anyone be this way rather than judging you and rejecting you i'm going to believe you it only works in first place in real terms it has to come before your children your children are precious your marriage has to come before your children it has to come before your work it has to come before your friends it has to come before anything else our marriage was healed when i hung my golf clubs up and i stopped playing golf and i made my marriage first again and so marriage has to be first and there are two ways that we get distracted one is the stresses of life okay stresses means children work business things like that and that's why traditions and disciplines are critical in our marriage because it's not what you can make happen it's what you can keep happening do you have a date night every week do you have time alone do you have time to talk every day do you have disciplines and traditions that keep the right things happening and they're inviolable no one's getting this time no one's getting this time no one's getting this energy my spouse deserves the best of my life of my time energy everything in my life and so i'm gonna protect this for you the stresses that come on us can cause us to become distracted it's and you can't be intimate with a person who's not paying attention and they're and they're not focused okay but the other one the other type of distraction is me turning my heart away in response to frustration or pain and this is the most dangerous one hebrews 13 says marriage is honorable among among all and the dead undefiled but fornicators and adulterers god will judge let your conduct be without covetousness be content with such things as you have for he himself has said i will never leave you nor forsake you in the context here is being frustrated with your spouse and beginning to covet other people's spouses and other other people but by the way when the bible tells us not to covet uh in the old testament it says don't cover your covet your neighbor's wife covered in coveting is is referenced to people and what the what god is saying here is you may get frustrated with your spouse i get frustrated with you your spouse may be imperfect you're imperfect but i've said to you i'll never leave you or forsake you i'll never physically leave you and i'll never turn your my heart away god has promised all of us in spite of all of our issues he will never turn his heart away from us there'll never be a moment in your eternity that god will ever stop paying attention to you and caring about you is that good news anybody okay so affairs happen when you turn your heart away affairs begin on the inside karen and i were on dennis rainey's radio program a few years ago and dennis was interviewing us and he was talking about the early days of our relationship and dennis said to karen when jimmy was being such a jerk earlier in your marriage were you ever tempted to have an affair and uh and i was interested in the answer i mean i'd never you know i thought well okay sister get honest here and uh here's what karen said i wouldn't let my heart go there and this is true and because of that she was fighting for our marriage when i was being a jerk the most see the most important thing and the ethic here is faithfulness not just on the outside on the inside i'm i am going to be faithful to you and when i'm frustrated at you and when i'm angry and when things are going bad i'm not going to turn my heart away to my friends i'm not going to turn my heart away to sports i'm not going to turn my heart away to the children i'm not going to turn my heart away to to anything else not another person in the worst days of our marriage i'll keep my heart focused on you number two inhibitor of intimacy is unresolved conflict big big big deal is not being able to deal with your issues ephesians 4 be angry don't sin don't let the sun go down on your wrath nor give place to the devil intimacy is an act of good will intimacy the the fact that you're being able to be intimate means that you're you've dealt with the issues in your relationship and here's the four points of ephesians 4 related to anger number one don't deny your anger god gets angry there's nothing wrong with being angry the second thing it says is don't sin be angry but don't sin don't hit don't yell don't cuss don't don't do and then tell your spouse well you made me mad that's the reason i did that go ahead and be angry there's nothing wrong with anger i mean we all get angry but just don't sin don't justify bad behavior the third thing it says is don't go to bed on that anger process it today today's anger is very manageable today's anger is there's nothing wrong with today's anger yesterday's anger is very dangerous anger because now it's it's being fermented it's toxic because here's the fourth thing it says don't give the devil an opportunity and the word devil there's the word diabolos it means slander when you go to bed on anger the devil will interpret your spouse to you and slander them in the process you know you're laying back to back not breathing because you don't want to give your spouse the benefit that you're alive and and and all these thoughts are going through your head you just had a fight and all these thoughts are going through your head and all that kind of stuff and and all this thing begins to play out in your mind see you you go to bed on that often enough and you wake up see here's what say this another way if you are in the habit of going to bed on your anger you have been counseled by the devil and you don't even know it i promise be angry don't sin don't go to bed on your anger you'll give a foothold to diabolos and diablos will get in there and convince you that you married the wrong person that this person will never be right for you that your soul mate is out there waiting for you and you you just you know married the wrong person all those things are true and so the the ethic of unresolved conflict is honesty is an atmosphere of honesty where you give each other the right to complain see when when people come in for marriage counseling a lot of times what we hear is i could never say this to them they would go ballistic i mean when i was just really messed up as a young man i remember coming to karen and i thought karen's my best friend and i'm going to tell her that i'm struggling in this area and i remember coming to karen and saying to her i just want you to know this and this and this and karen never went oh you hot that's just awful shame on you and oh don't you ever tell me anything like that again you're sick and uh i would come to karen and i would you know confess something to her or share something with her and things like that and she'd say okay thank you for being honest with me and and we would talk and because she was so approachable and she didn't shame me and react to me i felt safe around karen and so an atmosphere of honesty just says please tell me and and even if i don't agree i'll respect you and i'll listen and when you make a decision the the the ethic of honesty says we're not gonna hide stuff and we're not gonna make each other pay a price for being honest we're gonna have an honest relationship here everything good happens in the light everything bad happens in the darkness and if you don't let your spouse be honest it doesn't mean there aren't problems it just means you'll never know about them the worst marriage in the in the world is two selfish people in a marriage the greatest marriage is two servants in love and i'm not happy till you're happy and here's the here's the kingpin question in marriage are you okay are you okay an honest question to your spouse that says are you okay and i would have never asked karen that question early in our marriage because she would have answered it and i was terrified of i asked her that question regularly she asked me i said are you okay and here's what that means if you're not i'll crawl through cut glass to make you okay because the number one thing i do in life is serve jesus the second thing i do in life is serve you i want you to know you were made to love god is such an intimate god jesus prayed in john 17 that we would be one with him and be one with each other one it's such a profound intimacy that we were born to have that we were created to have that the word for it is one indistinguishable from one another we're so integrated into each other in a healthy way you were created by love to love you are created by one to be one that's who you are and all that we experience in life all of our ignorance and all of our hurts that stand against that thank god those things are on the outside not the inside but what's inside is god and when you look at these issues and you go through these issues and you're dishonest sit down talk about them pray about them things don't happen instantly but the process begins instantly you can make it in marriage you have a 100 chance of success in marriage [Music] hey this is brent evans with xo marriage and i want to thank you for listening to the marriage today podcast we believe your marriage has a 100 chance of success if you do it god's way if you enjoyed today's teaching and want to keep learning hey subscribe to the marriage today podcast and take some time to leave us a review your reviews help us spread the word and can encourage someone else in need for more great marriage content check out xo xomares.com where you can see all of our marriage building resources articles and live events

Channel: MarriageToday

Views: 12,682

Rating: 4.9350348 out of 5

Keywords: Jimmy evans, Karen Evans, marriagetoday, sex, love, relationship, christian, christian marriage, divorce, marriage advise, marriage help, xo marriage, dave willis, ashley willis

Id: OrD6Y9QyuJc

Length: 24min 11sec (1451 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021