EMERSON EGGERICHS | Lightbulb Moments in Marriage (Ep. 934)

Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, guys. We got a special guest on the podcast today. His name is Emerson Edgarich. He is an author and communication expert. And guys, if you've heard that name before, it's because he is the New York Times bestseller of one of the most popular Christian marriage books of all time, Love and Respect. That came out in the early 2000s, sold over 2 million copies. And if you go to our book list, that's undant.life/booklist. We have a marriage category and that is prominently placed in there. Our Sunday school class has gone through that book. It's just it's one of those books that it's just essential for you if you're ever going to be married, right? So, if you're single right now, read that book. If you're engaged, read it. If you're married, read it. If you're divorced, read it. If you're in a great marriage, terrible marriage, anything in between, that's something that you need to read. And we certainly do talk about that in the show. But we start off the episode today with something where we were talking about the concept of honor and virtue and kind of the things that have changed in terms of how do men even pursue those things. It was a great place to start. Talked a little bit about love and respect. And then we talked about his new book, Light Bulb Moments in Marriage. And I think that it's we weaved in and out of a lot of different subject matters. What has feminism done? How has that impacted how people respond in marriage? And then guys, honestly, I was selfishly very excited about this interview because of the DMs and emails and conversations that I've had with so many of you guys, right? Hundreds of you, if not more, about the struggles you're having in your marriage, right? The the problems you are causing, but then also the problems that are being caused by your spouse. And it's like, okay, you know what? If you're in a sexless marriage, like, which is, I guess, clinically speaking, less than four times a year, what are you to do? What if you're in a marriage where you're fixing things and you're working on yourself and you're becoming sanctified, but your wife is just basically disinterested? What about, you know, maybe you're not in a sexless marriage, but you're not satisfied with the sex life. Maybe you just fight all the time. All you're wanting is a little bit of peace, right? You want to go one day without there being some sort of miscommunication that torpedoes the rest of the interactions you're going to have with your spouse that day. And so I told him, even off air, I'm like, "Look, 95% of this audience is male. Shout out to the 5enters. love y'all, but please talk to the the men in my audience. Like, they need help. And I'm just I'm flatfooted. This isn't my area of expertise. This is not some of, you know, the stuff that I have to deal with that these guys are dealing with. I don't know what to tell him to do. This isn't as simple as you need to work out more. You need to read your Bible or you need to do jiu-jitsu. It's it's more complicated than that. And so, we get into all those different subject matters. He is an expert on this. He's been doing this for decades. Guys, I'm very thrilled with how this turned out. I wish we had more time. We'll certainly get him back on in the future. But without further ado, let's get into it. Emerson Egger, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast. >> Thank you, sir. >> Well, I am thrilled to have you on and I just want to get right to it. So, if you're okay with jumping right into the fire uh with me, you good with that? Okay. I figured you were. We just got through talking about this off air and so it's fresh on my mind. I'm not going to start with what I wanted to start with. You brought up the concept of honor, right? And so, uh, when you talk to male audiences, which you're talking to 95% male audience, but shout out to my 5enters, shout out to those 5% of ladies out there that are killers. But we live in this modern moment, Emerson, where if a guy had to put his finger on even a definition of honor or virtus, right? Virtue, you know, the manly virtues. Like we just had, you know, Elliot Page, you know, Ellen Paige, who is a, you know, woman with mental illness and, you know, she thinks she's a man. and she's cut off her breasts. She's done the whole things. Over the weekend of the recording of this, a video went viral of her lecturing men on what healthy masculinity is, right? So, here's a woman that's, you know, destroyed her body and, you know, we should be praying for this for this gal because she's so messed up. And, you know, but as a man, there are some people that are like, well, I wonder if she has something to teach me. And it's because as a culture, as as the greater capital C church, we don't really see a lot of uh instruction on honor or chivalry or those types of things. So, let's get your read on that and then we'll dig in from there. >> Well, one of the questions that I ask sometimes is what is the deepest motivation in us as men? And obviously there are going to be numerous ones, but um I uh had the privilege of spending many hours with Pat Riley, president of Miami Heat, and also with Coach Spo. They flew me down to address issues of honor, love, and respect. And u uh sitting with that icon uh was just an incredible privilege. and we um interacted on many ideas and at one point I asked Pat as well as coach spoke, do you want to be honored? Do you want to receive honors or do you want to be honorable? And uh immediately both of them, you know, responded. I was meeting with them separately, I want to be an honorable man. >> Yeah, >> there wasn't any debate about that. No question. I was being interviewed by Jordan Peterson's wife, Tammy, and I gave that illustration. She said, "Well, what's the difference between honor and being and receiving honors and being honored and honorable?" I said, "Well, honors would be like, you know, you you are you receive a a certificate, you receive a a trophy." Um, to be honored means you everybody's applauding you. But to be honorable goes deeper. It goes into the character. this is who I'm going to be. And this is why many movies that men love, the lead character usually has some, you know, flaw, but they're honorable. They're going to do what's right even when no one's watching. And they will do what's right even if somebody else receives the credit. And those are the kinds of movies that move us deeply because it rings true in us as men that this is something that resonates with who we are. And uh this is important because I think some men have lost that self-awareness. one, we don't know exactly what is honorable. Is it back to the idea of opening a door for a woman? I think we want to land more deeply that it's a character issue. It's it's who I am as a person. And we can kind of unpack that. But it's important for us to be aware of that because if we're not, and this is what's so interesting, we will react negatively to the perception that we're being dishonored or disrespected. And we will react to this. We'll take up offense to this. And sometimes we don't even know why. And in part we suppress it because we've been told that this idea of being honorable is rooted in a narcissism. It's all about you. And yet men serve and die for honor. So there's a there's a dark side to it that we can unpack. But there's a virtuous side. But if men are not aware of that, then they're reacting to the negative without that and they don't even know necessarily what's motivating them to do what they are doing. So you talk about a little bit of confusion here. So does that make sense what I'm saying so far? >> Absolutely. But I mean, what a tangled web we weave with with all of this because even when you brought up like, okay, what does it even mean to be honorable? I think there's the the two-headed monster, and I mean don't mean that derissively of protection and provision, right? That's a that's the biblical order of things. A man will protect and provide first for his family, right? Because our first uh relationship after our relationship with Christ is our relationship with our bride, which you know, we're going to get into a lot today. And then it's raising up our church children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And that's how we perform as the head of the household. The issue becomes when a man swings his pendulum too far to one side or the other. So you have some guys that are, you know, overwhelmed with the protection side, right? So they've, you know, they've they've got the the drums of water in the basement and they've got the canned food and they've got the firearms and they've got the trenches around the house and I'm pro all that stuff, but then they're not really providing. Maybe they're providing financially, but maybe not emotionally for their family. And then you have, you know, the provider person >> that makes work their idol, right? And they're like, "Hey, I'm just providing for my family. He who doesn't provide for his family is worse than a non-believer. I don't want to be worse than a non-believer. It's like, bro, you're married to your job. You're married to your business. You're married to the next book you're writing, whatever the thing might be. And so, it's how do we do the honor part? And so, I I'll end, you know, my question kind of with this, Emerson. Uh, I was doing some interviews a while back with some guys that were wanting to get into a coaching program of mine called Dominion. And I kept hearing the same thing. These guys were like, "Oh man, I'm really struggling in my marriage. Oh man, I'm really struggling with porn." Or, "Man, I'm really struggling at work right now." And finally, I snapped on a guy. I was like, you know what? You're not struggling at all. Because you know what it takes to have victory in those areas? Struggle. You're not struggling. And so that idea of becoming an honorable man requires struggle because the bill comes due every morning if you're going to be spiritually, mentally, and physically resilient. That's not something that you just do, you check off, and move on. It's a bill that comes due every morning. So, how can we extrapolate out for the men in our audience or anyone that is going to hear this down the line of like how we can struggle towards being honorable? >> No, I mean what you just described was profound, Kyle. I appreciate that was well said and very well said. In fact, the idea of the extremes. I mean, we can see ourselves as honorable because I've dug trenches around and I have, you know, 42 shotguns ready to kill anybody that, you know, trespasses and so I'm doing the honorable thing. Well, uh, and then you got that guy that's working night and day. He thinks he's doing the honorable thing by providing, and yet he's losing his wife and children in the process. So, obviously, we see there's a boundary here. So, how is it that we are to be this honorable man? What exactly is that? And and not only is it in relationship to one's marriage, but also what does it mean to honor Christ, what does it mean to be an honorable man before the Lord? And I think this is a a conversation that's so important and partly because again it comes back to this idea that um what is it that causes me to negatively react to my wife? What is it that causes me to negatively react to my lippy 16-year-old uh teenage daughter, right? What is it that causes me to negatively react when I am not receiving the promotion and somebody younger than me receives it? What is it that I'm reacting to when one of my peers has suddenly inherited a ton of money and I'm still struggling just to pay the bills because I'm just a dollar above poverty. I think partly we need to unpack what is it that triggers me and I think we might get a clue as to what it is that's driving me. And I believe that a lot of times there's a virtue underneath this. There's a wholesome value underneath this, but if we don't get in tune with it, we end up reacting in ways that are very, you know, discrediting. They are ineffective and uh and we are all licking our wounds in the corner feeling that we've been wronged and perhaps have been, but we're not dealing with this in a way that's healthy. And so it just seems to, you know, cascade downward. And uh so there's that dimension as well. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's landing because we live in a cultural moment where there's in a ubiquity of naval gazing. Oh, let me explore my own feelings and look into myself. But here's kind of what I tell people. You can't control all the inputs. You can't control the parents uh you were given. You can't control the town you were born into. You can't control uh you know how tall you're going to be. You can't There's so many things that are outside of your control. And yet we allow the things that are outside of our control to dictate how we behave. And I'm like, that's one of the few things that you have complete control over is how you respond and how you behave. I mean, talking to, you know, coach Spo and talking to Pat Riley, do you think they have only coached and managed players who had it perfect the whole way out? They had a perfect upbringing and people that had them in AA basketball camp the whole way and got them to the right coaches and the right programs to make them. No, a lot of those people come from busted up homes. A lot of them were encouraged to work hard. there was just something in them that told them, "I can be better. I can provide more. I should strive more. I should go for it." And I just think that that's the moment that we're living in for a lot of people is it's this overwhelming like, "Hey, just focus on yourself. Look inwardly." And I'm telling guys, if that's causing you even more issues, stop it. Adjust your behavior. And then maybe perhaps some of those feelings will follow. I'm okay with you exploring like how you got to where you are now. Why that triggered you? Why that made you angry, but let's focus on you making better decisions right now because that's one of the few things you can control. What would you say to that? >> Well, no, absolutely. Again, very insightful on your part and I think that's the challenge before us. And what's even more of a challenge is a lot of times we have to do that alone in those moments we're by ourselves. Yeah. and these improprieties that are taking place in front of us, what is it that gives me the incentive to do this honorable thing when I'm feeling dishonored? You know, in talking with Pat Riley and Coach Spell, we were there were some key players that had left and they were trying to re-evaluate the the the the culture. And one of the points that I made is that when men feel dishonored and when they feel unjustly treated, you're going to have mutiny. >> Yeah. uh they're either going to jump ship and leave, which some had done, or they're going to throw you overboard. >> Sure. Which is why some of these guys try to get rid of the coaches and the GMs and that kind of thing. >> And so, but then I I made this point. Sometimes people who feel dishonored and unjustly treated are misinterpreting things. They didn't get they didn't get the flavor of ice cream that they wanted on the jet, >> right? >> True story. True story. And so you have that kind of individual who misreads totally and is taking up offense. You're dishonoring me. You're not treating me fairly when we'd all look at this and say that's utterly childish. But then you have other individuals who and we were talking about some of the players. There were situations that happened that they truly were dishonored and they truly were unjustly treated and Pat and Spo made adjustments and they apologized. No, we were wrong on that. We we that this was wrong. And so just again a tribute to their leadership and their ability and why they've been so successful at what they do. But the it's incumbent upon you and me then as men to ask ourselves, am I taking up offense where no offense was intended? I'm claiming to be dishonored and unfairly treated when I'm as adolescent as I've always been. You know, I'm just immature. It's my issue. Yeah. >> Or is this truly inherently dishonoring to me and unjust to me? And at that moment where I'm in this situation by myself, what will give me the motivation to remain honorable when I'm being dishonored and to not go off on something in the face of what I would view is unjust? And my question to you, Kyle, is what would you say to a man who says, you know, there are moments when I'm guilty of both of those or I'm guilty of misinterpreting, but I also lack the internal fortitude to do what is right and righteous in the face of what I believe is uh unfair treatment. H how would you coach that guy? >> Well, the first thing I would say is like, well, hey, if I got served mint chocolate chip ice cream on the airplane, I'd want to take it down to the ground, too. That stuff's disgusting. Get it out of here. So that would be uh the first thing. Uh but the the second thing that I would say is uh for a lot of these guys they don't understand the concept of predecision. Okay. So years ago, we're talking like almost 20 years ago, I had a problem with pornography and masturbation. Okay. So, you know, I did some of these different groups and I did some of these accountability softwares and one of these days, I'm not anti- those things, but one of these days I just realized I needed to just stop doing that stuff. So, just stop it. And so it's like, okay, I'm not going to look at porn anymore and then I'm just not going to throw my hand in my pants. And then it's like, you know what's amazing, Emerson, is I just did that. And then I just continue to do that because I've preddecided. So the next time I'm bored and alone and feeling like I need to self soo, the decision that I'm not going to behave that way has already been made. The same thing with exercise. I don't wake up in the morning and and, you know, look at my shoes and and think about the gym and go, "Oh man, I'm really wondering whether or not I should do this. I've already decided assuming the house doesn't burn down overnight and assuming that, you know, I don't wake up with some sort of physical ailment. My like my legs on the ground, you know, detached from my body, I'm going to get up and I'm going to go exercise. I've predecided that I'm going to overcome, that I'm going to endure, that I'm going to not listen to that little voice in my head telling me, "Take care of yourself. Roll back over. Hit the snooze button." And so for for a lot of those guys that are that are in that position, the other thing that I would ask them to think about, and this is a little bit forward, um, this is you're probably picking this up in my personality, but when somebody is making an excuse for their behavior, I try not to address the behavior in the moment. I want to address future Homer, future behavior, right? So, I'll tell someone like, "Hey, I man, I understand." You know, you kind of get mad, but you know, uh, you know, when this happens in the future and you kind of blow up and and you do stuff that you regret, what's your going to be your excuse for why you did that then? Because a guy doesn't want to be called an excuse maker. He doesn't want to be called a whiner. He doesn't want to be called a baby. So, I'm mentally taking him out of the current stimuli of the situation where he's mad. And I'm I'm having him look to a future version of himself, maybe an hour from now, maybe a month from now, where he's in a similar position. And I'm just like, hey, what's going to be your excuse for reacting like a baby then? And then it's just like, oh man, I'm I'm putting them in the posture of predecision. Like, oh, I can decide now how I'm going to react then to something that triggered me now. If that makes sense. >> Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm so encouraged of that challenge. And of course, we all feel inadequate if we're addicted or we have issues that really have got us by the throat. Is it as easy to make a decision? And we'd all say no, not necessarily. But there's also another part that says if you don't make a decision, if there isn't a predecision, it's the idea of stepping into the future and seeing what this looks like. If I haven't come to a point where you know what, I need to do this differently and uh it is the good thing to do it differently. I feel inadequate that maybe I'll be able to do this. But if I don't make a decision about how this is going to happen, then I'm just going to continue to blame other situations and people. I'm going to justify myself. I'm going to It's the same old same old. I'm going to continue to justify that behavior. And at the end of the day, then the question we have to ask ourselves, is that the kind of man that I want to be? Is that the kind of individual that I want people to see me being 30 years down the road? And uh that is an important question that each of us as men have to ask. And do we want on our tombstone this written here lies an honorable man. And will the people who are closest to me say that was true or will they say boy who etched that on stone? Hey guys, real quick. You may have noticed a lot of companies out there that are advertising and marketing that they're American companies, but guess what guys? all of their manufacturing and all of their jobs are overseas, right? These companies are manufacturing overseas in order to increase their profit margins, but they're allowing globalism to put America and Americans behind. And I've been wanting to partner with an American company with really all across the board, American companies that prioritize American workers, their families, and keep their word. And guys, I have been working with this company for so long. We're going on I think four or five years now. That's why I want to remind you that we are partnered with Origin. Origin is an apparel company based in Maine. And what do they make? They make, guys, literally the best jiu-jitsu geese on the planet. And they are the only jiu-jitsu geese that are made completely in America with all American products and completely with American hands. And I use the Rift 2.0 and the Nano Pearl geese exclusively. Now, they also make jeans that is their best seller. They have very, very awesome stretchy jeans. And they also have work jeans and bootcut jeans. They make amazing hunting and outdoor gear. They offer handmade leather boots to include steeltoe boots. My personal favorites are the Whiskey Maine mocktoe boots in a natural wedge sole. I wear those around all the time. And they also make great workout clothes. They have everyday pants and shirts. They're getting more into kind of men's casual stuff. They have indestructible hoodies. They're launching new apparel all the time. It's just an amazing amazing company. So guys, if you haven't already, you need to check them out and support a company that supports Americans. Try Origin out today by going to origusa.com. That's origusa.com. Use the promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. Again, that's originusa.com. Promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. Well, and the same thing uh one one of the things that I try to do with people it's something called quantifiable end result or you could look at it like you know begin with the end in mind but it's like hey you know if I'm on a coaching call hey an hour from now you feel great about what we talked about and you're so psyched about the the next steps you're going to be working on before we get to next month. What will we need to talk about over the next hour for you to end up feeling that way? Right. Well, let's extrapolate that out to your example. your family and loved ones are gathered around your graveside. Right? There's your headstone and it says, "Here lies an honorable man or however you want to word it. Now, let's reverse engineer. What kind of things do you need to do? How what kind of reactions do you need to make? What kind of protection and provision do you need to have uh have kind of set up in your life?" And I guess for a lot of guys too, we live in a society where everyone has some sort of definable uh ailment of some kind. Everyone's got some sort of mental disorder. Everyone's got some sort of an addiction. Those types of things. For most of the guys that I run into, Emerson, they don't actually have an addiction. They have a proclivity. So, they're not addicted to pornography. They just like watching it and they like masturbating. They're not addicted to gambling. They like that feeling of watching a random UFC fight or baseball game or something like that knowing something's on the line, right? They they're addicted to that feeling. Because if I were to put those two types of guys in a straight jacket in a padded room, they're not going to need they're not going to need like medication to get through that experience because their phone's been taken away and they can't make, you know, $20 bets or look at pornography. And I think for a lot of guys, they they fight they try to find excuses to lose as opposed to trying to find excuses to win. And I mean, again, I love that you brought up Spolstra and Pat Riley. Those people have made their careers. Pat Riley over, you know, lots of coaching and management. Spolstra, you know, with multiple championship appearances and multiple championships, they find guys on the roster that find excuses to win. They don't hide when things go poorly. When they shoot over in the first half, they're not pouting in at halftime. They're like, "Man, my shot's just not here tonight, but you know what I am going to do? I'm going to rebound and set picks like a madman for the next 24 minutes of this game or something like that." And we just have too many men that are okay with finding an excuse to be lesser than. >> Mhm. Well, and one of the themes that I written about in my new book called Light Bulb Moments in Marriage, and it's it's an intimidating axiom, but it says, "My response is my responsibility." >> That's right. >> My response is my responsibility. And and at first, we don't like that. The way I apply that, my response is my responsibility. Sarah, my wife, who I've been married to over 50 years, Sarah does not cause me to be unloving, for instance. She reveals my choice to be unloving. Now everything in me wants to blame her. It's just it's a default that I was unloving because you triggered that. You caused that. If you you were more honor and you were more respectful, I wouldn't have reacted that way. >> But years ago when we locked on to this idea that my response is my responsibility and this has had great play. I mean I've been amazed at how many people who've gone to our love and respect two-day conferences over a 25 year period have written said that that liberated me. Well why? Because I follow up with this. Uh it ultimately this is the key to inner freedom. It's the key to being a strong individual. What do I mean? Well, I like to use that analogy that I heard years ago. A speck of sand in the human eye first causes you know irritation then if not cared for infection. If still not cared for it could lead to loss of vision. That same speck of sand Kyle in an oyster causes irritation then concretion and produces what? >> Pearl. Pearl. So my question is, did the sand cause the results in the human eye? Did the sand cause the results in the oyster? And in some ways, it's a trick question, but the answer is no. The sand is an irritant. It reveals the inner properties of the human eye. It reveals the inner properties of the oyster. It did not cause loss of vision. It did not cause the oyster to form or the pearl to form. it's an irritant. And we have to then step back and ask ourselves, are the people in our lives irritants? And if they are, are they causing me to be the way I am? Or are they revealing the way I am? And that's intimidating if I've spent my whole life justifying my wrong choices, my wrong behaviors, blaming everybody else around me, or I've come to a point where, you know what, I'm going to lock into this. It's intimidating at first, but to the point you're making is we're far freer. And and here's what's so beautiful. Once we lock into this, we realize you can't get me to hate you. Yeah. You can you can physically abuse me. You can torture me. I mean, and all of that is going to be incredibly pain beyond description. But Christ himself said, "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." Inwardly, he was free. >> He was free. I mean, I like to ask this question. Does the sun h the the sun melts the butter, but that sun hardens the clay. And the question is, how how did the sun know to melt the butter? How did the sun know to harden the clay? It didn't. The sun is heat that's revealing the inner properties of the butter and revealing the inner properties of the clay. You know, I like to say over here is a beautiful rose. I'm going to step on this rose and there's this beautiful aroma that ascends to my nostrils. Wow, that's a beautiful smell. Over here's a skunk. I'm going to step on this skunk. And there's an aroma there, too. Now, my question is, did I cause the rose to smell like a rose? Did I cause the skunk to smell like a a skunk? No. The pressure revealed the inner properties of the rose. The pressure revealed the inner properties of the skunk. The heat in that situation revealed the inner properties of the clay. The heat revealed the inner properties of the butter. And once we come to that point where we realize in the sand is an irritant that reveals the inner properties, then I have to step back as a man who wants to be an honorable man and say, you know what, I got to own up to this. But also, you you can't you can't make me hate you. You you can't you don't have any power over me. And this is true in marriage where guys are being triggered because they feel like, you know, they know their wives love them, but she doesn't like me. She doesn't respect me. I'm sick. God of the disrespect and then he goes off in anger and just loses it because he's feeling dishonored when the truth is he is free in his spirit to respond differently. She's not causing him to be this way. She's revealing him to be this way. And this doesn't justify her disdain, her disgust, her her disregard, her disrespect, her disapproval, her disappointment. I'm not I'm not even going to justify any of that. I'm simply saying there's a line. And when I come to that point where I want to be free, then I've got to lock into this axiom that says my response is my responsibility. You don't cause me to be the way I am. You reveal the way I am. And though that's intimidating at first, it's liberating. So talk to me about that, Kyle. Does that make any sense? >> Well, yeah. That that was one of the things I was going to talk about uh when we got to the book. So, I love that you covered it now because it really, uh, there's a there's a quote that I got from the inside of a shoe from back in the day. So, uh, Derell Derell Rivas about 15 years ago was the most dominant cornerback in the NFL. They called it Revas Island. Like, if you were out there having to deal with him, well, he, you know, Nike made some Zoom Revases. One year they made some Revas shoes and on the inside it said the best way to handle pressure is to apply it, right? And that was his thing. He was a pressure corner, right? So he put so much pressure on these receivers, he just completely threw them off their game. But so many men will allow the pressure to squeeze them to where the worst parts of them come out, right? And so it's like, you know, cuz people say it's like, okay, when you get squeezed, what comes out? Like that, you know, you know, out of the overflow of the of the mouth, the heart speaks. Like those those kinds of overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks rather. And so I think that that's very applicable for a lot of people, but it does dovetail into because you mentioned love and respect, you know, the the conferences over the last 25 years. Well, that book, Love and Respect, has, you know, I don't I don't know how it compares to other books in that field, but we have a book list on our website, the 100 books every modern Christian man should read, undaunted.life/booklist. And there's a marriage section, and that book is prominently featured on there. Our Sunday school class has gone through that. How many times have you heard that? And one thing I want to ask you, it's it's kind of a two-part question because I do want to get to the content of the new book, but when you were writing it, did you know that this was going to change everything about everything about you and your wife's marriage? Uh the business of bringing in money to the marriage, the impact that you were going to have on all these couples around the world. Did you have an inkling of that? And then obviously if I let you go without explaining the crazy cycle, I would be a a derelict in terms of my duties. So I got to have you go through that as well. Well, on that latter point, yeah, I mean, I pastored for oh, nearly 20 years in East Lancing, Michigan, the home of the Michigan State, the Spartans, college town. The church was started by a group of professors. I was in invited eventually to become the senior pastor there. And so, and that's where I got my PhD and family studies. But, um, I had the privilege of studying the Bible 30 hours a week for the exposition of scripture. And I came across Ephesians 5:33, which is the summary statement to what many would consider the greatest treatise in the New Testament on marriage. And it summarized, "Husbands must love your wives." That's agape love. No wife is commanded to agape love her husband, by the way. Only husbands are commanded to agape love. And then it says, "Wives are to respect their husbands." And of course, at that time, uh, I knew women said, "Well, he hasn't earned it. He doesn't deserve it. He's not superior to me. I'm not inferior to him. not going to be treated like a door man. I'm not going to give him license to do what he wants. I think you have a secret agenda to return to patriarchy and I'm not going to set the feminist theme back 50 years. I certainly not going to subject myself to emotional abuse. And uh but other than that, Dr. Emerson, I'm really open to hearing what you have to say about it. >> No kidding. >> So, you and I serve and die for honor, but women see this as narcissistic. And so, I was up against something there. But apart from how I began to avoid the landmines and and unpack this that really excited people, I realized there is this connection here. Something is being revealed here. And the research confirms this as well. I won't get into that, but I realize that without love, my wife Sarah tends to react in ways that feel disrespectful to me. Um, there's a negativity that comes over a woman and she's aggressive. She moves toward the man and she wants to talk and she and it appears as though she's trying to put the man down when really she's more insecure and panicking and she's trying to repair. But he sees the confrontation is rooted in contempt rather than concern and and a desire to connect. So there's a misread there. But nonetheless, that's how I interpret Sarah. She's dissing me and nobody talks to me this way. And then when I feel disrespected, 85% of those who withdraw in Stonewall is the man. And we do so because our heartbeats are 99 beats per minute. We have to calm down physiologically. We're not aware of that necessarily. We just instinctively know that. So we withdraw. We don't want to fight. So there's freeze and flight, as we say. And so now that feels unloving to her. And so here's the crazy cycle. Without love, she reacts without respect. Without respect, he reacts without love. And that I shared with Sarah and I said, "Whoa, I think I've discovered something." And of course that's that was the the thing that eventually just exploded. It just made sense. People were saying you described in 30 seconds what I've been experiencing 30 years of my marriage. Particularly men who didn't have a voice or vocabulary to explain what they were feeling. Plus it was fair and balanced. It was both men and women have responsibility here. It's not just men love your wives happy wife happy life. That it is truly a biblical perspective that's balanced and it empowers both. And women sometimes are not doing themselves a great service when they come across with gestures of contempt that they don't intend. But he's not doing himself any favor when he withdraws out of honor only to be labeled as unloving. And what's interesting, she can do the loving thing but sound disrespectful. He can do the respectful thing but end up appearing very unloving. And this is why we confuse each other because we know our hearts are in the right place, but we get on this crazy cycle. And then you add another layer here. Get this. without love defensively. She reacts offensively without respect and she doesn't see it. She just sees she's insecure and defensively reacting and he should decode but she doesn't realize how offensive some of the things she does and says is to the male. And then again without respect defensively he reacts offensively without love but he doesn't see the offense. He only sees is I nobody talks to me this way but her. And so he's he's putting up a shield, but that's clubbing her up against the face. And so you have two goodwill people who are aware of their air hoses being stepped on, but they're not aware of the fact that they're cutting the air hose of their spouse. And this is why people keep spinning on that. So once I got that message out there, I didn't know. I didn't know what to predict. It just made sense to Sarah me. And suddenly this thing just exploded and took off. Now, did I know that it was going to happen like it did? No. I mean, I I was a Bible expositor. My own church really responded to this favorably. But even when I first started, this is a comical story. There was a called Mothers of Preschoolers, MOPS. There were hundred women. And uh they asked me, they knew I was excited about this message. They didn't know exactly what. So, I came in and talked about respecting a man. And this is where I stood on every landmine. And I didn't get through how you honor, how you respect what I went to military school for five years, so it's huge to me. We serve and die. But the women were listening to me and I didn't get through with the material, Kyle. So I said, "Hey, I'm your pastor. I'll come back next next session." The group The group voted for me not to come back. I was their pastor and one of my good female friends, they asked her to come and speak on this topic. How to love your husband. See, women default to what they do by nature. God doesn't command her to go love because he put it within her nature to nurture. She loves to love at the level of intimacy. God's not going to command her to do what he created her to do because he's not in redundancy. But it comes back in the feminist world always to love. But it's quite natural to love your husband. But it's not natural to put on respect toward him while you confront things that are unloving any more than a man finds it natural to be loving toward an individual that he thinks despises who he is as a human being. But this is precisely what God is calling us to do. And this message has played in purity. I didn't know that we would get as much traction. Right now, I think the book has sold 2.4 million in hardback and it continues to sell about 100,000 books a year and it just they the industry says it's an evergreen book. So, I am just deeply humbled and grateful and particularly because my mom and dad divorced when I was one then they remarried. They weren't Christ followers. My dad attempted to strangle my mother to death. There were rage issues. They sent me to military school at 13 because of family problems. So, I'm deeply grateful that perhaps I could contribute to the healing of marriages that I've often longed. I wish my mom and dad had heard this message through someone like myself. No, I I appreciate that. And the impact is indelible because you can set out to do something that's evergreen, but it can only be evergreen if it doesn't suck. And so, if the marketplace rejects it and then it's just like, okay, you you meant to set set up something that was evergreen, but there wasn't something that you were tapping into. Because I tell people all the time, a lot of the things, a lot of the axioms I give on the show, I didn't come up with them, right? I'm standing on the shoulders of giants and theologians and people that have said the same things I'm saying, but just packaged it differently. I'm packaging it for a time and place, and that time is now, and that place is here. And so, the the interesting thing about uh there there's a direct throughpoint with what you talk about in love and respect all the way into the new book, Light Bold Moments in Marriage: 12 Biblical Perspectives for Successful and Satisfied Couples. So, I'm going to read a quote from the introduction and then we'll we'll kind of tease our way into the new book. One light bulb moment can change everything about your marriage. I mean, Emerson, you just talked about the light bulb people had after hearing you describe the crazy cycle, right? Whether it's a moment of sudden clarity or a hard one realization etched through experience, insight has the power to reshape everything we thought we knew. In this book, you're invited into that kind of awakening. Not just once, but again and again. You'll notice a natural journey unfolding as you go upward, outward, and inward. So, let's just start 30,000 foot view. Why this book? Why now? Why you? >> Yeah. And you, we apologize. We didn't get a copy. So, I said earlier, I'll just hold up the book. >> There it is, guys. >> It's available everywhere. >> Well, people wrote me saying I had a light bulb moment. I mean, this was one of the most common things in our book signing line. We had a light bulb moment. We had an aha moment. We had a Eureka moment. It was like and and there was a pivot. It was like, you know, you go all these years. Sometimes I say, you don't need more effort, you need more light. And it is just that simple. When when a wife realizes that her husband isn't trying to react in unloving ways, he's actually trying to do the honorable thing. Yes, it feels unloving to you. We're not going to dismiss that. You're a pink. You're a woman. We understand that when he shuts down and withdraws, it is unloving. It feels like an act of hostility. It feels like he hates you. All of that's true. But what's his motive? In many cases, he would die for you if if you don't kill him first. That he would literally die for you. In fact, there's a funny story. Uh husband, his wife said, "Would you take a bullet for me?" He says, "You know I would, woman. I don't even know why you'd bring that up. You know, I'd take a bullet for you. Any day of the week, I'd take a bullet for you." But let's get this straight. You and I both know that the reason we're getting shot at is because of you. >> It could be true. Sounds like it could be true. >> That's right. So the the light bulb moments, people began to realize, wait a minute, my husband's a good willed man who's trying to do the honorable thing. I don't like that. I need to confront that. I need to tell him I feel unloved. I feel I need to tell him I feel insecure. But when she locked into that light bulb moment, they had a conversation for the first time in 12 years. And she noticed his spirit was soft. He looked at her. They connected because she didn't dismiss him as unloving. you're just unloving. When the truth is he wasn't trying to be unloving. He was trying to do what in his view was deescalate a conflict which at the end of the day was no big deal. And he also knew he needed to calm down to protect the relationship. But he didn't know how to articulate that in a way that even came across to her as persuasive. So he just grew quieter and quieter and quieter. Now on the way home from the love and respect conference, they talked at an intimate level in a way they hadn't done for over a decade. And the same thing, women will criticize and complain. The research points this out. Women will criticize and complain. They're aggressive. They move toward the man to to verbalize things that are upsetting. And in a man's world, that's disrespect. No one talks to him this way. But the question on the table, is she a good willed man? And also, Shaunie Felhon, a good friend, a researcher, Harvard graduate degree. She uh called me. She said, "Emmerrison, we found out that Christian women live in this undercurrent of anxiety that they're three conversations away from hearing their husband say, "I don't love you. Never have loved you, and I'm leaving you." And given that's the case, I say to men, then that explains why she's insecure and why she's so aggressive. This isn't just her trying to put you down. She's insecure that you're going to leave her. She's insecure that you don't love her. Now, should she come to you and say, "I feel insecure. I feel like you don't love me. I have a need that only you can meet. you're a strong man and I need your strength. Help me here. Reassure me. She should say all of that, but she doesn't. Instead, she's just negative and she expects him to decode. But once he realizes that she's actually insecure and fearful and that she has a need that only he can meet and the reason he's coming at her, the reason she's coming at him that way is because she's trying to connect. And it's ultimately a compliment, not a complaint. It completely changes the nature of their tension, what I call heated fellowship. So now the question all of us have to ask and I go through 12 different chapters where people said light bulb moment. One of the things we're up against is hey you know what Emerson I need you to validate me in front of my spouse and they need to change and so can I buy this book and hand it to them so that they'll change. Well maybe but what we're up against Kyle is we're looking for easy. You had said earlier that, you know, love and respect is a book that really kind of lays it out. It does, but we're also moving into a culture where we have sound bites and we're up against even in writing or communicating. Just tell me what I want to hear. Don't tell me what I need to hear. And the reason this is important is ultimately you and I have to decide whether I want to influence the spirit of my spouse. And if I'm going to influence them, do I have to tell them here's what they need to do to change? Or could it actually be that if I just adjusted a little bit, just a little bit, just had a little light, just made a little that shockingly my spouse would respond to me more positively. And what we're up against is this question. Do we really believe that or is that pixie dust? And I am taking the position if you just make a little adjustment. Yes, I'm putting the onus back on you in this case of a man. If you do just XYZ, just a little thing, watch what happens. But the question you have to ask is whether you're you have you want that power. And and here's another issue. If you if you resent your wife, if you're bitter toward her, Colossians 3:19, husbands, love your wives and do not be embitter against them. If you're mad at her, if you're bitter toward her, if you've been reading the last 20 years that she's got an agenda, she gets up in the early morning to storyboard ways to irritate you. If you're convinced that she's against you, then you won't hear me. But if you're a man is sitting there thinking, "No, I know she's goodwilled." 1 Corinthians 7:33 and 34 says the husband's concerned about how to please his wife and the wife is concerned about how to please her husband. The word of God teaches that. And so we say, you know what, they have basic goodwill. I don't think she's really trying to be disrespectful, though she is. I'm going to listen to what you have to say here, Emerson. And if I do, what might happen? Well, read the book and you'll see exactly what happens. So many people I mean, you remember what it was like when you were courting? This was the woman of your dreams. She's still there. She's still there. I'm telling you, she's still there. And you can bring her out, but much of what is going on is she's afraid of coming out in the same way you are afraid of her contemptuous tongue. And so, we pull away from each other. So, somebody has to move first. And people say, "Well, why can't my wife move first?" Well, she could, but she's not listening. So, the interesting thing that I want to talk about and wanted to get into, and so you're kind of setting it up perfectly. I believe it was in chapter one you talked about where this was when you were still a pastor. You had a spouse that committed suicide. Um and you know that that caused you to you know have kind of one of those like lament prayers to God like you're just in tears weeping like and the quote from the book is Lord this cannot be what you intended for marriage. Help me speak to the pain so many are carrying. Help me help them see you and your love and purpose for them in a place of heartbreak, despair and despondency. So, a lot of what I just heard you describe, Emerson, from the woman's side, I hear from men on the men's side. Men that feel like they are three conversations away from their wife saying, "You know what? I don't love you. I never loved you. And I'm out of here. And guess what? I'm taking, you know, the kids and half of our assets, you know, whether they worked for them or not." >> And so, they're constantly, it's almost like they're a gunslinger. They're constantly looking around the saloon waiting for the the threat to arrive. And then you know it becomes I've asked a lot of people this question so I'll ask it to you as well. When a man lays out his side of the story which is obviously all I'm getting and I get it in a truncated email. >> I feel like I'm caught flatfooted because the answer is read Ephesians 5 and do the stuff that applies to you. Let God deal with the stuff that applies to her. That's the correct answer. However, living that day in and day out is seemingly unworkable. So for these men that you know cuz a lot of times in the book whenever you talk about men having an affair, it's physical and women having an affair, it's emotional. But for the men who have been cheated on, right? You know, for for the men in my audience that have just like broke down in tears when they meet me, like explaining what's been done to them and then they make the changes, right? like they become more loving, they become more tender, they become better leaders, uh better Christians, better guides for their family, all those types of things. When that isn't reciprocated by their wife or when the wife knows how to please the husband and chooses not to, she's capable of it, but chooses not to. I don't know what to tell these men. I don't other than you made a covenant. Even if she broke it, you're still in this covenant. You do what you got to do. you can only control you, you know, struggle, all the things that you've already heard me say in this conversation. But that's kind of the issue for me is it's just like it's hard for me to tell the guys the same thing over and over, which is, hey, you signed up for this, you picked her, you know, you just got to endure, especially if the woman's not on board. >> Well, and and that's exactly what we were talking about earlier. The question is, is this true dishonor and true unjust treatment toward the man? And it could very well be. It could. I mean, Hosea is married to Goomemer who's an adulterous. >> Brutal. >> And God says, "Go love a woman who's an adulteress." And so, you have that kind of a situation without any question. I have so many stories. I have one man whose wife, I mean, this was he's one of the most loving individuals. All of his adult children say he's one of the most loving individuals, dynamic leader, very successful. I mean, you you couldn't ask for a better guy. And she just walked out on him. And and and and so then he was going to give her everything in the divorce. She's divorcing him, right? going to divorce him and they're go through divorce and he tells his lawyer, "I'm going to give her everything. I'm I'm giving her everything. I love her. I die for her. I'm giving her everything." And the the lawyer said, "That's not going to happen." And he said, "Well, why is it not going to happen?" Because I'm going to tell the judge I'm at a plea of insanity here. You're insane. >> So, the lawyer prevented that from happening. So, you have I there was a guy that was with the SWAT team in LA. I mean, you talk about a man's man and his wife was having an affair with another policeman. And you don't do that because you don't have an affair with somebody who carries a gun. But this guy that was committing adultery was a fool. But for four years, this wife was having an adulterous relationship. She leaves this guy. And I knew this guy. You talk about a man's man. He just hunkered down in Christ. He said, "I'm going to I'm I'm going to wait upon her like Hosea. I'm going to go love a woman. Every time I have a chance, I'm going to be loving toward her." and in four years she came back to him. Now see, most people are saying I'm I'm just not going to do that. But first of all, I'm saying there are men who are dishonored and unjustly treated. And this is something that I talk about in my book, The Rewarded Cycle, that ultimately when we do what we do unto Jesus Christ, even if our spouse doesn't respond, we can be honored throughout eternity. Listen to me, men, you will be honored throughout eternity for doing marriage God's way, even though your spouse didn't respond. You do your side of the equation and Jesus Christ is going to say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant." That's why do you have a crisis of marriage here or a crisis of faith? There's that issue. But there's also another side. We It's called confirmation bias. The bias, we interpret the tea leaves through our own grid. So when we get on the crazy cycle, without love, she reacts without respect. Without respect, he reacts without love. The men are going to pick it up. She's disrespectful. But if you go back a few steps, what did you say or do that felt unloving to her that explains why she negatively react? If you're willing to go back and give her the benefit of the doubt, you may discover that you're taking up offense where no offense was interpreted. But based on your maleness, you're going to interpret it every time because no one talks to you that way. So you have proof, but you're also biased because you're truncated in what you're interpreting here. And a an honorable man, he's fair. Yes, what she said was very disrespectful. And you can say, "Honey, what you just said was very disrespectful, and I'm losing energy here, but did I say or do something earlier that felt unloving to you?" I've said to men, if you say that in humility to your wife, many wives will start to tear up. And then women are not uncomfortable in saying, "I'm sorry. Yes, you hurt my feelings, but I was worse than you and my reaction. Will you forgive me? I was horrible. I was rotten. I was a witch." Right? They they they move into I'm sorry. very they the very they feel very comfortable in the ocean of emotion and they will apologize. So it's very important and this is the point I'll stop with. It's very important that you interpret the tea leaves correctly here because if you've taken up offense where there was no offense intended then you're misreading the situation. And this is a a major problem. The feeling of being disrespected does not automatically mean that you were disrespected. And a husband's perception of disrespect is not always proof of disrespect. And sometimes what wounds a man most is what he assumes was meant by the words, not the words themselves. Many men hear character attack when none was intended. Well, and I think that's what that's that's certainly helpful. I also wonder as well, I mean, this is kind of venturing outside of the content of the book, but you know, even early on in the book, you know, you talk about how men just feel tolerated in their marriage. They don't feel fully loved, fully accepted. You know, guards are up, all the things you we've talked about in this conversation, you've talked about throughout many of your books. And then one thing that I don't feel like is talked about enough is when women use sex, access to sex, when they use criticism, when they use irrational emotions as a club and control mechanism over their husbands, right? Because just generally, if we break it down to the base level biology, most women can't physically hurt and assault most men. So what do they do? do they emotionally hurt them? Right? Like that's that's kind of their method of warfare. It's way more diabolical if you think about it. And so, uh, and you get into this early on in the book about us deriving our value from our wife, right? We're we're trying to have her try to fill in the gaps in our soul that only Christ can fill in. But I just I'm overwhelmed Emerson in my study of really things that are down downstream of Jean Jacqu Rouso, Carl Marx, the Frankfurt school that gets us all the way to feminism. We're currently experiencing the fourth wave of fe feminism. First wave was suffrage. Second wave was sexual liberation and you know killing our babies. Third wave is you know what women are actually better than men and we don't need them anymore. And fourth wave is what is a woman? All right so a guy in a dress uh in a beard that's a woman somehow. But we're just hit with wave after wave after wave. And these women, Emerson, they're being discipled by the internet. They're being discipled by influencers on Instagram. They're not being discipled by older women in the church, uh, as the book of Titus would tell us to have happen. They're not being discipled by their own reading of the word. They're just getting peppered with a lot of subtle emotions about, hey, you need to be the one to to build the career. You need to be the one to conquer. Hey, you've always got to have an extra set of money on the side. you've always got to have, you know, something to protect in case this man runs out on you. And it prevents them from being one flesh, from being together. And then you have, you know, like that guy who's just an upstanding guy, great guy, and the wife just decides one day, screw him, I'm out. And it's just like, again, the correct answer is just you are married as unto Christ, just like you do your work, your job as unto Christ. But I'm trying to help guys understand what can they do on the daily basis, right? what can they do to pursue their wife to continue to be in your marriage because if you have a difficult marriage, that's not an excuse to tap out. It's an excuse to lock in. But again, most men don't feel that way. >> Well, what you described is where we're at in many ways in the secular society. And it's so easy then to take that and apply it to a goodwilled woman who loves Jesus, but she is defaulting to her femininity when she's upset, which is going to be negativity, criticism. You know, women will say, "Romance me, surprise me, make me laugh. That's what I want." Men say, "Can't we just have one day when everything's okay?" He He does. He He wants less negativity. She wants more positivity. And so, a lot of men are just dealing with this negativity and they're worn out. But if you conclude that this woman has subscribed to the cultural carnal perspective, then and that comes back to the fact she's truly dishonoring you. She's dishonoring Christ. She's not treating you fairly. Then that scenario, I understand. I've been there. But my first line of attack is I think we misread what's going on many cases. And so it's important for us to not necessarily see criticism as anything other than her desire to connect with you. As I said before, that that complaint is really a compliment that she has a need that only you can meet. And you're going to have to decide as a man, is my wife coming at me because she's trying to put me down. Is she doing all of this stuff that you just so eloquently described because she's got a a secular, sensual, carnal, feminist agenda? or does she not really know exactly how else to get through to us because we have done some things that have frightened her, disconnected with her, withdrawn, gone out to the garage, were pouting. You know, I spoke to five NFL head football coaches that you would all know and their wives for three hours in uh Florida. And I talked about the fact that sometimes with Sarah, I become like an adolescent. I'm a teenage kid and I just pout and they all raise their I said, "Do you have that?" And they all all five guys. Those guys would never do any of this in in anywhere else other than we all said our wives can get to us and they said yeah I grouse one guy you know who he is I just grouse I just grumble I go into my room and I just grow I feel sorry for myself I enter into a pity party isn't that fascinating so we're going to have to understand though was she intending to really put us down and most of those guys said no she's just you just but she can get to me in a way that no one else can get so you either have to label her then as a Jezebel Well, she has a bell spirit or she's just saying, "I have a need that only you can meet." And that her confrontation is often fueled by concern, not by contempt. And she moves toward the conflict because she wants to save the connection. And her pursuit is often attempt to restore closeness. And beneath many complaints is a longing to feel loved. And so, every man listening is going to have to make that decision. What I've said over the years is God commands me to love Sarah. He does not permit me to say, Sarah, the other equation in Ephesians 5:33 is for you to respect me. You need to submit to me, woman. You need to respect me. I've never said that. Why? Because I don't have a right to say that. That's between her and Jesus Christ. So I, as an honorable man, as painful as it is, stay on my side of the net. And I do this unto Jesus Christ. But I also believe that if I do what Christ is calling me to do, one, this pleases him and I find pleasure in pleasing him. End of story. That should be a major goal for all of us. I find pleasure in pleasing him. Even if my spouse or anybody else doesn't respond, I I I'd rather be offended, you know, take up offense. I'd rather be wronged and and and to touch the heart of Christ. But also, I have to come to a point where God's not a cosmic killjoy. And if if he has said that I do this loving thing, why? Because Sarah has a need to feel love for who she is apart from her performance. And you got to be married, as I say, to one bad dude or one bad dudis. For if you consistently do that loving thing for that woman to resist this and you'll know it if you're consistent and here's the deal. It isn't that you aren't loving periodically. It's the inconsistencies like my dad with the rage. He could do a lot of wonderful things and then explode and it completely panicked my mom. So if there's consistency though over the next six months and this is the challenge I send him. You consistently do what you do unto Jesus Christ apart from your wife. You just make a decision which is what you said earlier. We make a decision about the future. Here's who I'm going to be. I'm stepping in the future. I'm gonna do this. And I say to man, let's just let's explore an experiment. The ne and I even use six weeks, not even six months. The next six weeks, let's just do this. And my prediction is that your wife will say, "If you're not Baptist, have you been drinking?" H I mean, she'll be blown away. Now, if she's got evil and she's committed adultery, all bets off because there isn't anything you're going to do that has any wholesomeness. When a woman's committing adultery, the man she's married to is the is Hitler's distant cousin. But when you do this loving thing toward a woman who at the deepest heart has goodwill and she wants a relationship with you, she doesn't know how to do it necessarily, but she wants that. She wants it for the sake of the children even even if it's not because she wants with you. There's so many intrinsic motivations that women have to make. And also bragging rights among women is connection. Bragging rights isn't because they're married to a guy that can lift 500 pounds. Physique isn't really important. Kindness is what is important. So the bragging rights among women is this loving kind. And the women, he did what? He apologized to you. What? I And then if she's ready to leave the relationship and I say to men, when she's together with her bffs, they'll all pause. Wait a minute. Something's going on here. You think this is true? You think he's just trying to manipulate? They'll all talk about it and they'll all stop because they want ultimately the relationship, but they've given up on the fact that anything would change. And the minute something changes, many women, even more so than men. Now, to your point earlier, the walk away woman is an epidemic. I get it. Three to one women are leaving. I say to women, "Your son will be faithful to his wife. That sweet daughter-in-law of yours, I bet she'll leave him far sooner than he'll leave her." And this is what really gets to women. So I I understand that. But I say to the man, let's not jump to conclusions here. Let's take up the challenge. Next six weeks, you consistently do the loving thing unto Jesus Christ. Take the hit. As one of the things I say, see Jesus Christ standing beyond the spouse, the shoulder of your wife. As one guy said, Jesus is saying to me, go ahead, hit me. And so he he looks at Christ and he begins to do what he does even though she's in his face, right? But he he made that decision and a certain point his wife just broke. And I asked him, man, do you want that kind of power? You're not going to teach her respect you by being unloving. That's you cannot use unworthy means to achieve holy ends. But if you want to break your wife and she has any degree of goodwill, the next six weeks you're consistent. And I'm going to tell you, women are tracking with this in the nuances all over the place. They they can't not track with this. And this is one of the things that irritates us cuz they're tracking with everything. Can you kind of just let things go, but on the positive side, they're tracking with every little thing and it's piling up positively. And there comes a moment when she'll break. And I've seen it again and again and again. Why? Because she's not wanting to resist this. She lives in fear that this is not going to be consistent. And once she has confidence and it's predictable, she melts and she moves towards you and she responds to you. Well, Anderson, I appreciate you getting into all that. You know, unfortunately, we're we're coming to a close here. Uh, I've got all kinds of notes on the new book. So, guys, you're just going to have to go check it out. It is in the show notes, light bulb moments in a marriage. And so, I I guess I'll end with this because I didn't know this was a thing until I got into the Christian men space, whatever that is. But I would talk to these men and they were in sexless marriage. What I'm not saying is that they don't like the sex they're having. I mean sexless, right? So we're talking I think clinically speaking that's less than four times a year. But then in chapter four of the book you talk about our worldview the holy word not Hollywood. And you know obviously Hollywood and pornography show these things about these you know ravenous women that are basically you know overly sexualized and doing all these different things and all that. So if we take away a little bit of the extremes of what we see and have seen presented in those kinds of mediums. The thing I'm struck with Emerson is there are women out there. This isn't some sort of Hollywood mythology that are very sexual. They're not nyomaniacs, right? But they're they're very sexual. They they want to please their man sexually. They want to be pleased sexually. They're sexually open. All those things. And yes, we can get into whether they were raised in a repressive sexual environment or a hyper fundamentalist environment where it's like sex is the worst. Don't do it. Save it for the one you love the most. Like it's uh see no that that's brutal, right? But I just again I I'm trying to get you to say the things that I I've been inqu or unequipped or illquipped to say to the men in my audience when they're in one of those situations where maybe they're in a sexless marriage cuz the woman's using it as a tool of evil. Or you have these women that are disengaged mentally, emotionally from sex. You know, they allow you to do it to them, but they're not really there with you. They're not really responding to you. And it's really not as much about what you're doing. It's about what they're deciding to do. What would you say to a man that's in that situation? Because gosh, I've had so many DMs and conversations in person with men that are dealing with that day in and day out. >> Yeah, and I address this a lot. And I think there are women who will deny and deprive. 1 Corinthians 7:5, stop depriving one another except by agreement, come together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control. And I'm writing a whole book in 1 Corinthians 7 about the win-win marriage. So, there are individuals out there that deprive both ways. Men deprive their wives sexually. they deprive their their wives of that emotional connection and vice versa. There are women who are filled with contempt and uh she even wants sex but she's so contemptuous he he doesn't want to have sex with her. I can't have sex with someone who despises me the way she does. It just turns me off. So there's a a continuum of of experiences here. But I take the position initially that first of all it's been said that uh for a woman romance is the drama sex is the intermission. >> For a man sex is the drama and romance is the intermission. >> You follow what I'm saying? >> Absolutely. >> And so we have to come to a point has God hardwired us differently? And the answer is yes he has. But women are not going to just be sexually active with anybody and everybody. That's not long-term because every woman I've met needs to feel safe. She needs to feel safe in relationship to the man that she's having sexual intimacy with. And that usually is one man who she's confident loves her no matter what and is and she feels safe. This is a big issue. And when she feels safe, that's the key to arousal. Women want sex. I say to I say to men, take your wife to every wedding of an extended family and she'll want to be sexually intimately with that Eden. Why? Because the whole thing was about love and romance and connection. What arouses her is relationship. And if you've had an expectation that she should get turned on to your body the way you get turned on to her body, you've missed how God has designed this. But here's what I say. I believe most women responded to their husbands sexually early on. They weren't initiating. They weren't even thinking about sex. spec particularly if you had five kids or three kids all of under five. She's exhausted. But that didn't mean that she was unresponsive and it didn't mean that she just laid there with no interest. It meant she was pleased that she could meet your need. Women get it. They understand that you have a need and they want to meet that need. They they love meeting needs. They are nurturing individuals. They care about that. But if your expectation is that she was going to do a strip tease, that she was going to somehow seduce you sexually, you can be very unfair in the same way as she's unfair that you're supposed to write her poetry, have a candle lit dinner, all it's not within your DNA. It's not who we are as men. Now, we can do that, but it's not our default unless we're trying to woo a woman, but you are 30 years in marriage. It's not your default usually, unless there's been a crisis. So, we have to give grace here to her if you want grace extended to you. We're not wired to romance you, surprise me, make me laugh. We're not We're not wired to do that. Now, we can do it, but that doesn't mean that we want to do it. And if she says, "Well, you didn't really want to do it, and now she's contemptuous on the heels of our lack of romantic, you know, default mechanism." That'd be very unfair. It's very unfair for you to expect your wife to be drooling. Your daughter-in-law, or your daughter, I mean, isn't going to be sexually drooling over a man. Now, when she's ovulating, wanting to have a baby, yes, she's going to be all in on that, but she'll also be responsive to your future son-in-law. But if he now begins to expect her to have some kind of a sexual uh hunger in the same way, then this this is what happens. Once a wife begins to feel that you're only wanting sex with me if I perform sex or I it just shuts her down. Now she doesn't feel safe. And now the very longing that she had for sexual intimacy and touch and affection, she's closed off. And now you say she's, you know, frigid. She doesn't want. No, no. You contributed to that early on. >> She was all in, but not in the way that you were going into the the sexualized component that you were referring to of the pornographic kind of imaging. The same thing women are reading these romance fantasies and I say that's porn. You're creating a you're creating a fantasy with someone who's not your husband. And it's arousing in your femininity things that Christ is not pleased with. Men looking at porn thinking that's what women want. I'm going to tell you men, the strip tease woman, the porn woman, they're thinking about picking up their three-year-old from daycare after this scene is done. They're not. I mean, they are acting. Now, is there going to be sometimes where there's natural arousment because they're essential zones? Absolutely. But they'll try to capture that on camera to give the impression that this woman is drooling every day. I'm going to tell you that's that's not going to happen. They also create these scenes based on ovulation if they still are in the menstrual cycle, which they are. That the whole thing is schemed to create what you have as an anticipation of what human sexuality is all about. And here's the deal. You had a good thing going until you didn't read it correctly. You quenched her. Now she's shut off and you think this woman has a problem. So now what's the answer, Emerson? You need to go back to what I said. I want you to consistently think about meeting her needs for love apart from sex, but also seek her forgiveness. Say, "Honey, I've really been thinking I've been selfish on the sexual front. All those years you were very responsive to me, but I put an expectation on you that's wrong and and I'm really processing this. Will you forgive me?" And then just shut up. Don't go on about the fact that you and don't don't go but stop the butt. You got to stop the butt because she'll she'll immediately hear the butt. do this unto Jesus Christ. Even it may not be fair. I'm not going to justify everything she's done. I'm not I don't don't don't go there. I call it the 8020 rule. 20% we can incriminate her. She's guilty. But we're looking at the 80% that overall she's a good willed woman who was trying to respond to you and you know what? You kind of had an unrealistic expectation just as she had an unrealistic expectation of you. But because you're listening to me, you can begin on this front. And that's what I say to men. First of all, let's go back and see if this might not really cause her to be more responsive to you. And it's not sex four times a year. It's now uh at least four times a month. And Emerson, I I just got to be honest, I'm so thankful for this conversation because like I said, I've asked some of these questions and different people that come on the show, pastors, other authors. you know, if I if there's a tangential connection to the subject matter, I try to bring it in because the overwhelming amount of messages I'm getting, I'm assuming there's way more men in my audience that feel this way that just don't have the time or didn't even know they could reach out directly to me through my inbox. Right. And so, I think that the things that you've said have been very, very helpful to these men. But, we got to get you out of here. I do want to ask you, what are you working on now? You always seem to have uh some irons in the fire, but is there any project you're working on now that you haven't shared with anybody else that we can break some news on the show? >> Yeah. Well, and the win-win marriage is coming up next year on 1 Corinthians 7. But I want to circle back to what you just said. The number one complaint is the sexless marriage. You know, I have this acronym called chair. C H A I R S. And the S is sexuality. How you spell respect to a man? And we did this study with all these men of these which are the most important. And all the guys said, you can remove C h a just keep the S. Right? So sex is huge. And the men are expressing this because they're sincere. Every man, we're not trying to dismiss this longing. God has designed you. You have a need that only your wife can meet. How else are you to do that other through masturbation or adultery or celibacy? And so none of those are healthy options because you're not celibate. Masturbation is not the way you want to go. And certainly adultery is not the way. So you're you're absolutely frustrated. I get that. I'm very empathetic. The question is what's the strategy? And I believe that what I just shared with Kyle is the way forward. It's not as bad as you think. It's been painful, but there is a recovery here. You don't have to conclude that she is completely indifferent to sex. Why? Because when she's loved unconditionally and you begin to be predictable, she wants sex. She wants sex. That's the key to her arousal. Unconditional love. Trust me. Now, will it be to the extent that you want it? You want a quickie? You want this? You want that? She's not wired. When's the last time she ever said, "Let's have a quickie." it. She's not hardwired that way. And so, trust me, as you move forward in what I'm saying, what you think is a hopeless, helpless situation is anything but that. But the onus is back on you. It's unfair to you. There's probably been some bad things said to each other. But women are very forgiving. They'll pivot quite quickly. They aren't going to hold on to it as long as you may think. As long as she can sense there's a change because it goes back to this issue she's talking and this becomes bragging rights. I understand it. I see it. That's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? >> No, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much, Kyle. >> Thanks again for coming on, Emerson. >> God bless. >> There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Emerson. But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life. Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. If you want to check out Emerson's newest book, Light Bulb Moments in a Marriage, that link is here. Also, his classic book, Love and Respect, is there. And then everything he's doing, the conferences, the speaking, everything can be found at loveandrespect.com. That link is in the show notes as well. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive fivestar review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@unaed.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook. And check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming. www.undaunted.life. The music on this podcast is the song Conqueror by the Christian metal band Void Awaken. Be sure to stream their music on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever else you get your music. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. Now heat.