Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 44

START YOUR ENGINES PODCAST: Men and Emotions Aren’t Polar Opposites

Men can, and should, be emotional.

And in today’s podcast aimed more at guys (though women can listen, too), we’re summarizing a lot of what we’ve said about emotional maturity and men in the last month.

So listen in!

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

Listen to the last women’s podcast

Timestamp for Podcast:

1:40 Interview with Andrew J Bauman on Emotional Maturity in Men
27:40 Keith and Sheila discuss a RQ on a seemingly selfish husband
32:20 What Your Spouse Wants SHOULD Matter
35:30 Pay Attention To What Your Spouse is Saying
37:40 Can you connect helpful gestures with sex?
42:15 MEN! We need your help on this survey!

Main Segment: Why do Christian resources assume men won’t be emotional? With Andrew J. Bauman

First, my apologies that the sound in this segment isn’t the greatest. Zoom didn’t record well, and I’m looking into getting new software to record interviews, so I may hold off on interviews for a while again. I like doing them, but it’s always the sound that has bothered me.

Anyway, Andrew is an awesome author, talking about emotional health and focusing on men’s emotionally healthy sexuality. I love his blog posts at his site, but what he does during most of his time is run some counseling centers. His wife Christy is also the author of a book I’ve been raving about lately, Theology of the Womb.

In this segment, I was reading Andrew some of the quotes about men and emotions from our post on Monday, and asking him to respond. He then commented on a sermon from Emerson Eggerichs about how it’s honorable that men use stonewalling to avoid talking about issues. And finally, we talked about what to do if your spouse really needs counseling but refuses to go.

Reader Question: My Husband Doesn’t Help When I Ask Him

Keith jumped on for our reader question segment when we tackled this:

My husband has this thing where, if he feels that he wouldn’t ask for help in a certain situation, he refuses to help someone else.

For example – he’d rearranged the fridge to put some milk in and the turkey that was in there started leaking blood onto the lower shelf after he’d closed the door. When I opened the fridge later while making dinner, I found it in a big puddle, soaking into the egg cartons and generally making a disgusting mess.

I started to clean and, as he walked by, asked him to help. He popped the turkey into a bag and started to walk away. I asked if he’d stay and help with the rest of the cleanup and he said no and kept walking.

Then came the fight. Once I’d sopped up the worst of it, I came and asked him why he wouldn’t help. “It’s not a two-person job” was his main reason. He said he’d rather do it himself than help – and he eventually did.

I tried to get him to understand that it’s about being a team. About knowing he’ll be there if I ask for help. “You didn’t NEED help” was his reply. When I say that it makes it easier and faster, he just says the same thing. If I say he’s being selfish, he says “you’re being selfish to ask me to stop what I’m doing and help.”

This has come up in other areas. If I ask for help making the bed (it’s even larger than a king-size so I find it a struggle to get the too-small bottom sheet on) he’ll say no if he’s not in a good mood and, if I persist, will huffily go do it by himself to prove it’s not a two-person job.

 It’s not that he thinks I don’t do enough around here. He says I’m too driven. But sometimes I Just. Want. Help. I find it so hurtful when I ask and he assesses the situation and decides that it’s not worth his time. That I shouldn’t even bother him with these things. That I’m… I’m not even sure? Being selfish? “Just wanting emotional support” as he says?

It seems so obvious to me that, if your spouse asks for help with something like that, you chip in. His attitude feels so alienating and I never know if I can trust that his response won’t be dismissive or hurtful.

Generally, he’s a good man, but he has these small things that leave me feeling bruised and distant. We’re struggling with our sex life and he doesn’t get it when I say that I need to feel connected to him in all the other ways to want to connect with him sexually. He gets it in theory, but he’ll point out some things he’s done right and that it hasn’t magically made me want sex more. Sometimes he’ll even try to be a little more helpful when he wants sex. But then something like this will pop up and sour the flavour. And that sourness doesn’t all wash away with the next sweet thing he does. Using the making-the-bed example, sometimes he’ll quietly go and do it all by himself as a nice gesture since he knows I hate doing it. It’s very sweet.

 Am I crazy to still feel guarded and unsure, knowing how he might react if I ask for help with it another night? There are other small areas too where I feel he’s being selfish and that, as a result, I can’t trust him. It’s very hard to want sex with someone you don’t
feel you can trust in the little things.

The big thing we talked about here is that if your spouse says something is an issue, it’s an issue.

It doesn’t mean you have to agree on your spouse’s solution. But when your spouse repeatedly brings up the same thing, and you repeatedly shut them down, you’re not winning anything. They have an issue and they need to feel heard. Your spouse will never feel close to you and feel like a team if you constantly dismiss them when they say they feel hurt. What matters to your spouse should matter to you, as I talked about in our post about what it’s okay to expect of your spouse. 

And sex can’t be transactional, either! Keith and I talked about how if you do things for your spouse in order to get sex, you end up changing the very nature of sex, and it can end up being a total turn off. Do things because you’re on the same team and you’re a decent person. Sex flows out of a culmination of a loving relationship, and if that foundation isn’t there, sex isn’t going to be something that’s an exciting proposition. 

What Does Research Say?

We’re also starting a segment on what research says, but rather than sharing a study with you this week, we wanted to ask you to participate in one! We’re conducting a survey of men’s marital and sexual satisfaction. It takes about 10 minutes to complete, and we would love to have any married guy take it! You can find it right here. 

We need your voice in our men's survey!
Take me to it!



















Other Things Mentioned in this Podcast

Andrew’s great site, with all of his amazing blog posts
Take Andrew’s survey to see if you’re a sexually healthy man–or if your husband is a sexually healthy man
Our emotional maturity series
How Christian resources make it sound like men can’t be emotionally healthy

What do you think? Have you ever wanted to go to counseling but your spouse won’t go? Have you ever had an issue that your spouse just won’t engage with? Let’s talk in the comments!

 

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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God Language and Emotional Maturity Part 2: There’s a Commandment for That!

We’ve been talking a lot on the blog about emotional maturity and its importance. And part of that is the whole “God language” issue.

It’s Joanna on the blog today! Joanna is my intrepid stats person and co-author of The Great Sex Rescue, who is busy helping me analyze the results to our MEN’S sex & marriage survey we’re conducting right now (Are you a married guy? Take it right here!). A transplant from Pittsburgh, she lived in my neck of the woods in Ontario until COVID hit and erased her husband’s job. They recently moved up to the Canadian Arctic (yes, really) where her husband is a lawyer for the government of Nunavut.

Joanna was taken by my first article on God language and emotional maturity, and we’ve been FaceTiming this back and forth, and she asked to write down a few of her thoughts today.

In English history, King Henry VIII was desperate for a son and heir to the throne. His dynasty was pretty tenuous from a legitimacy perspective, and the prospect of an heir to ensure the succession was of the utmost importance to him. After 20 years of marriage to Catherine of Aragon and with zero sons living past infancy, Henry decided to divorce her… but he needed justification. He ended up finding a random verse in Leviticus that he felt proved that his marriage was cursed and illegitimate. The pope didn’t agree and so Henry split from papal authority and started the church of England.

Henry VIII was a brutal, monstrous man. When he used Leviticus to “justify” his divorce, he was also breaking the third commandment. He took God’s name in vain.

Now, if you’re anything like me, the way we were taught about the third commandment is that it’s pretty much the easiest of the 10 to keep.

Don’t say OMG and you’re good, right? That’s what “taking God’s name in vain” means.

Except that’s totally and completely wrong.

According to the fabulous Bible Story Handbook by Dr. John Walton, taking God’s name in vain actually means “don’t abuse God’s name for your own benefit.” He adds that “we violate this commandment when we … present our thoughts as the Word of God.”

That hits close to home. And it’s definitely something I need to be on guard against.

God language often gets used in Christian circles to shut down conversation, prevent criticism, avoid emotional involvement, avoid difficult conversations, and generally manipulate people.

And all of those ways are taking God’s name in vain.

I think this has always “been a thing” as it were. That’s literally why there’s a commandment for that. Wouldn’t be there if it weren’t an issue!

But how does this manifest particularly in today’s day and age? Here’s what I realized recently:

My two-year-old is entirely obsessed with The Sound of Music. It’s adorable and I’m happy to have Julie Andrews on repeat in our little apartment. Anyway, I hadn’t listened to the music in awhile when I first put it on for her and I was, frankly, terrifically surprised when I relistened to “Climb Every Mountain.” I expected it to be song that would really speak to me, about doing what it takes to do the right thing. But it wasn’t. Instead, Mother Abbess tells Maria to “climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow til you find your dream.”

And then she describes the dream and what it will take *Maria* to achieve. But she doesn’t talk about duty or family or making a better world. Or any of it. It’s just “follow your dream.”

Watch most Disney movies and you’ll get the same plot. Following “your dreams” is the highest value.

In today’s parlance, Henry VIII had a dream to have a son and he followed it. Disney films don’t include the idea of collateral damage, but Henry clearly inflicted plenty. And collateral damage is a pretty much guaranteed byproduct of unfettered ambition.

Now, of course, having goals and dreams is a great thing! I certainly have them and they’ve helped get me to where I am today in my life. But there’s a difference between having goals and holding them with open hands, allowing providence and life to shape them and an all out, tight-fisted sprint towards “my dream.” And, if I’m honest, the “climb every mountain” chorus sounds a lot more like the latter.

Jesus didn’t call us to go out and “do big things” on his behalf. He called us to be faithful.

And he called us to follow HIM not our dreams. And one thing I’ve noticed about a lot of folks who overuse God language is that they specifically use it to make their “dreams come true.”

I want to be a race car driver or a pop star? “God is calling me to that” shuts down conversation and lets me follow my dreams, no matter how foolish, selfish, or silly they might be.

Ultimately, it can turn dreams into gods of our own making. And it prevents us from getting wise counsel.

My husband and I are making some big decisions right now and I’ll be honest, it’s quite challenging. We don’t have the same preferences when it comes to some massive choices and that’s just plain tricky. We’re trying to navigate it as best as we can while also recognizing that we aren’t making any final decisions now. It’s just an ongoing conversation. And so, when one of us has a new thought or realization, we open up the discussion again. We often spend an hour or two talking over things while looking at our fake fire and holding our newborn. And we’re doing the things we need to do to help us make the decisions as best as we can – annoying “adult” things like dealing with banking issues. Ultimately, one of us is going to get their way and one of us isn’t. And we are both SUPER aware of the fact that the danger here is that whoever doesn’t get their way could resent the spouse who does. There are upsides and downsides to both choices and so we are trying to be faithful to the decision-making process and to each other.

As I’ve been writing this post I realized how dehumanizing it would feel to me if my husband said, “my way is the right way! God told me so!” Instead of an intimate and life-giving conversation about what our short-term and long-term goals are, I would feel shut down. Honestly, I think I’d struggle mightily with resentment because I wouldn’t have been heard.

If that’s your story, I’m so terribly sorry. And if you’re tempted to use God language to justify your own desires and get your way, remember: there’s a commandment for that.

What do you think? Have you ever thought of “using the Lord’s name in vain” in this context? How do we avoid this? Let’s talk in the comments!

Posts in the Emotional Maturity Series:

Four Markers of Emotional Maturity
Do We Use God Language to Avoid Maturity?
2 Keys to Handling Stonewalling Behavior
6 Ways to Grow in Emotional Maturity
A Book List to Help with Emotional Maturity
What Does Emotional Maturity Look Like (Podcast)
When Christian Resources Perpetuate Your Spouse's Immaturity 
How to Deal with Passive Aggressiveness
It's Not Feminine to Have Emotions (November 30)

And check out 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage--my book that covers emotional maturity. Plus there's a FREE group study you can take with it!

Joanna Sawatsky

Blog Contributor & Co-Author on the upcoming The Great Sex Rescue!

Joanna Daigle Sawatsky holds a Master of Public Health degree and is a trained microbiologist, epidemiologist, and statistician. After a year and a half of infertility, she and her husband, Josiah, welcomed Mariana Grace into their lives just 72 hours after she defended her thesis. A Pittsburgh native who somehow ended up in the Arctic with her husband and two little girls. ENFJ, 1
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EMOTIONAL MATURITY SERIES: Do Christian Resources Promote Emotional Immaturity (especially in men)?

Christian books ask far more of women than they do of men.

We learned that pretty quickly when we read the top 15 bestselling Christian sex & marriage books for our upcoming book The Great Sex Rescue. But what they’re really doing is assuming that men can never be emotionally mature.

We’re in the middle of our emotional maturity series, and we’ve talked about what emotional maturity is; how God language can enable emotional immaturity; what to do if a spouse is stonewalling; and more. Today I want to run some quotes that we’ve got tucked away in a huge file from when we were reviewing books that show that evangelical authors have assumed that men cannot and will not get in touch with their emotions, and so the women will have to do that work for them.

And before I even get into this, I want to stress one important thing: women are not more innately mature than men, or more emotionally mature than men. Women are not better than men.

Yet so many books portray men as strong physically and very stoic, but completely out of touch emotionally, and needing women to fix things for them. This, I believe, contributes to men having a hard time talking about feelings and interacting with their wives on an emotional level, as we talked about in last week’s podcast.

If you expect that men can’t be emotional and can’t handle emotions, then it’s not too far a leap to say that this is the way that God made them, and that it’s actually manly to be unable to process emotions. And that, my friends, is a big problem.

When we were reading these books, we were mostly looking for what they said about sex, so we didn’t take a lot of notes on what they said about emotions. But here are just a few excerpts that we found illuminating:

Men Are Not Expected to Grow Up or Mature:

Think about how often you hear men referred to as “just boys at heart”, or “boys will be boys.” And yet women are rarely told that we can sin, be immature, or do stupid things because we’re just little girls at heart.

 

Men are just boys grown tall, and this man’s failure had shaken his manhood and accentuated the boy that lurks in the heart of every man.

Act of Marriage, p. 30

“Sometimes we men do act like little boys. I’m not saying that’s good or admirable, but that’s the way we are. You’re married to a real man, not an ideal stoic–and if he is denied sexual fulfillment, it will affect him in more ways than a woman could possibly understand.”

Sheet Music, p. 17

Men Don’t Need Romance or Affection

So many books talk like only women need romance and affection, while men only need sex. The idea that a man won’t want affection or could take or leave affection is quite widespread in books (and I know I used to say similar things, too! It’s actually not true). But what do you think is the effect on boys being told their whole lives that real men don’t want or need affection? They’ll end up taking all their needs for affection and channeling them into sex.

A woman never loses the need to be romanced, whereas a man doesn’t even possess that need. His emotions are near the surface and easily ignited; hers are deep and burn slowly.

Act of Marriage, p. 43

[H]is need for romantic love is either nonexistent or minimal. But he is married to a creature with an extraordinary need for romance.

Act of Marriage, p. 43

Sex for him and affection for you is a two-way street. Just as he should minister to your spirit to have access to your body, so, too, you should minister to his body if you want to gain access to his spirit.

Love & Respect, p. 250

Have you ever wondered why guys push so hard against the sexual boundaries when dating? It’s not because they are godless pigs; it’s because they’re longing to express their hearts in their own innate language of love.

Every Heart Restored, p. 63

Men Don’t Really Need to Talk or Communicate

And not just that–they’re not capable of talking or communicating unless they first get sex. You can’t expect a man to talk with you if you don’t have sex with him.

Again, this says that men aren’t emotional beings at heart, and it discourages men from learning to communicate well.

We see this in so many books–in His Needs, Her Needs, sex is the first thing that the husband can’t do without, whereas affection (and really communication and having a relationship) are the first things that the wife can’t do without. Love & Respect similarly says that closeness (which includes talking and being emotionally connected) are things that she needs, but sexuality is what he needs. All the elements of feeling emotionally connected are considered feminine. All that he needs from her is friendship, but not necessarily sharing feelings or connecting emotionally (only spending time together).

This is such a common theme it’s hard to know what to quote, because for most books it would mean quoting whole chapters. But here are just two:

Husbands, particularly, can come under satanic attack when deprived of sexual release. Wives might be able to better understand this if they think about how they would feel if their husbands didn’t want to talk or listen to them.

Love & Respect, p. 252

Lack of sex is as emotionally serious to him as, say, his sudden silence would be to you, were he simply to stop communicating with you. It is just as wounding to him, just as much a legitimate grievance–and just as dangerous to your marriage.

For Women Only, p. 92

The insinuation here is that men don’t actually need to communicate or feel emotionally close with their wives. They could take or leave talking–what they can’t take or leave is sex. But as we’ve talked at length about before, talking and sex are not equivalent. To say that a man can take or leave emotional connection is a huge problem.

 

Men Sin Simply Because That’s How God Made Them

The majority of books that talk about men’s problem with lust phraise it in terms of “that’s just part of being a man.”

Again, imagine what this does to boys as they grow up in the Christian community. They’ll hear: “Real men lust. Real men struggle with porn. If I lust, I really can’t help it, because that’s the way God made me. That’s part of being a man.”

And if men can’t help but lust, then who is responsible for keeping men pure from lust? Women, of course! They have to be super modest and they have to have a lot of sex with their husbands, because their husbands can’t stop this on their own. So women were made to be mediating forces on these men who would sin if weren’t for women.

Remember, our habits [our lusts] are rooted in our maleness. We understand them. Women don’t.

Every Man's Battle, p. 116

Even apart from our stopping short of God’s standards, we find another reason for the prevalence of sexual sin among men. We got there naturally–simply by being male.

Every Man's Battle, p. 61

Our male eyes give us the ability to sin just about any time we want.

Every Heart Restored, p. 49

Like this post so far? You should also check out:

Pastors: Enough with the “Boys Will Be Boys”

Men Are Visual: Does That Mean All Men Lust?

Why Every Man’s Battle Backfires

Can We Talk About Men’s Sexual Needs in a Healthy Way?

Then, to top it all off, women are told that our job is to keep men feeling good about themselves.

I’m all for affirming and supporting your husband (as I talked about last week), but it goes further than that. So many Christian resources tell us that it’s our job to bolster his ego, as if it’s vitally important that he feels good about himself.

But that’s never supposed to be our job in the Christian life. Our job is to point people to Jesus. Our job is to encourage and to spur one another on to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:26)! It is not to tell someone they are wonderful no matter what. We’re supposed to be iron sharpening iron.

Too often, this is couched in language of “respect” and “submission”

Because women are supposed to make men feel good about themselves, it also becomes very important that we never criticize, or to do so may be labeled disrespectful.

(For more on the problems with unconditional respect, and an incident in Love & Respect where she is labeled disrespectful for simply have a legitimate grievance, see my post on Why Unconditional Respect Can’t Work).

What is the cumulative effect of all of this on our emotional maturity?

Men are told that they are not emotional beings. In fact, REAL men are sexual, not emotional. And they’re told that they don’t need affection and they don’t need conversation or connection. So what do men do with their legitimate, God-given needs for these things? Often they all get channelled into sex instead because that’s “safe”. That’s “manly”.

And then women are similarly made to stay immature because we’re told that we must have no boundaries.

First of all, we’re told that we’re responsible for things that we are not responsible for. Because men can’t help but lust; because young men can’t help but push past sexual boundaries; women have to be the gatekeepers and stop men from sinning. We need to stay vigilant to make sure we don’t go too far before we’re married (so we’re responsible for his sin and ours), and we must dress modestly to ensure that men don’t sin.

 

(By the way, I’m not against women dressing with respect. It’s just that the modesty message must be completely divorced from the lust message. As soon as you say, “men are responsible for lust, but women must also dress modestly,” then you don’t really mean that men are responsible for lust. You’re giving a caveat. So by all means, we can talk about what clothes are good to wear. But this should never, ever be about preventing lust. And I’ve got another way of talking about modesty and the stumbling block idea here).

But then second, we’re told that not only are we responsible for the things that are actually men’s responsibility; we’re told that we can’t verbalize and communicate things that ARE our responsibility. So if we have negative feelings or issues, we should think twice and perhaps not say it at all, because to express discontent may be being disrespectful. Again, a perfect example of this is the wet towel incident in Love & Respect. She was simply asking for something eminently reasonable, but she was labeled disrespectful anyway.

Just because men, in general, may not be as in touch with their emotions does not mean that this is God-given.

Yes, we know that men are less emotionally mature than women (although it’s not as stark and bleak as many of these books make it sound. it’s a marginal difference, not a huge, gaping chasm). And just because men may say they don’t need emotional connection does not mean that they don’t.

These books have looked at what men say, and then pronounced that this is the way God must have made it! But we live in a fallen world with fallen relationships. Just as women need to get more in touch with the sexuality that God made in us, so men need to get more in touch with their emotions. We’re created for intimacy on all levels, and to say that women were created for it one way and men another does such a disservice, and leads to very unhealthy relationships.

Women can also be emotionally immature, by the way. It’s just that Christian literature tends to point women towards more responsibility, not less, while pointing men towards less responsibility, rather than more. If you are reading a Christian book that asks far more of women than it does of men, you need to ask, “Is this an emotionally healthy book? Does this encourage emotional maturity?”

And then we need to start rejecting those that don’t. We simply must change the conversation in the evangelical community so that our books and resources point to more emotional health, not less.

And that will only happen when we focus less on gender, and focus more on wholeness in Christ.

 

What do you think? Have you found that Christian resources present a stereotype? If so, what should we do about it?

Posts in the Emotional Maturity Series:

Four Markers of Emotional Maturity
Do We Use God Language to Avoid Maturity?
2 Keys to Handling Stonewalling Behavior
6 Ways to Grow in Emotional Maturity
A Book List to Help with Emotional Maturity
What Does Emotional Maturity Look Like (Podcast)
When Christian Resources Perpetuate Your Spouse's Immaturity 
How to Deal with Passive Aggressiveness
It's Not Feminine to Have Emotions (November 30)

And check out 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage--my book that covers emotional maturity. Plus there's a FREE group study you can take with it!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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Okay, Guys, It’s Your Turn: Our Men’s Survey is Here!

Last winter I did a survey of 20,000 married, Christian women.

Well, now it’s time to do a survey of Christian guys!

The survey of women was super comprehensive and super long, and we’ll be sharing our results in our upcoming book The Great Sex Rescue.

But now we want to know what men experience. How satisfied are guys with their sex lives? How happy are guys with their marriages?

And we’ll be sharing the results in our upcoming book The Guy’s Guide to Great Sex! Keith and I signed a contract with Zondervan for a companion book to The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and we’re so excited to be writing it right now.

It will be out next spring, but we need all the help we can get compiling more data. We really want this book, as well, to be based on data, and not just on what I think is true, or what Keith thinks is true (especially because we sometimes disagree and we need evidence!).

So can you help us by doing these 3 things?

Fill out the survey (if you’re a guy) or ask  your husband to fill it out
Take this link and email it to 3 guys you know who would fill it out (or women who could get their husbands to fill it out) >> https://www.research.net/r/baremarria... ≤≤
Share the link on Facebook or social media >> https://www.research.net/r/baremarria... ≤≤

It would help me so much! We’re so excited to have a companion to The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, to help guys understand sex as they get ready for the wedding–but also help them make sex so much better if they’re already married! I get asked so often for resource suggestions for women’s husbands, because they love this blog, but they want something geared more to men. So we’re going to try to provide that, to help build healthy sexuality in the Christian world.

I really appreciate all of you! (And don’t worry–the guy’s survey isn’t as long as the women’s!)

I want to be part of the men's marriage survey!
Fill out the survey

What would you like us to cover in The Guy’s Guide to Great Sex? Let me know in the comments! And thank you for getting people to take the survey!

PODCAST: What Does Emotional Maturity Look Like?

Is emotional maturity a female thing? (Hint: Nope!)

And what does emotional maturity look like? 

In today’s podcast I’m actually having a guest–Marc Alan Schelske, the author of The Wisdom of Your Heart. And then Keith and I are talking about men and emotions!

Listen in:

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast

And here it is on YouTube!

 
TIMELINE of the Podcast:

0:55 Interview with Marc Alan Schelske on Emotional Maturity
17:00 Keith and Sheila discuss Emotional Responses
19:45 What is stonewalling, and what does it look like?
29:02 How to Communicate better with a stonewaller
36:05 What Does Research Say about Emotional Intelligence?
39:40 Why Men are at a societal disadvantage with emotions
41:20 A Big Tip to Help Couples with Emotional Connection & Intimacy

Main Segment: What is Emotional Maturity?

Marc Alan Schelske joined me to talk about emotional maturity, based on his book The Wisdom of Your Heart, which I’ve mentioned repeatedly this month, and which I talked about on Tuesday on our post about books that can help you grow more mature.

I love what he said about emotional maturity: How we have emotions, which are just signals of what your subjective or objective experience, and then we have the reactions to those emotions. Emotionally immature people see them as the same thing–you feel something, so you act this way. Emotional maturity is having a gap between emotions and reaction, to leave room for reflection. Exactly!

Find out more about Marc Alan Schelske:

The Wisdom of Your Heart (Paperback, ebook, audiobook)
The Untangle Workbook–a workbook to help you walk through reflecting on something emotional you’ve having trouble dealing with
The Untangled Heart Workshop–a course to help you grow emotionally mature as you learn to reflect and process emotions.

Marc Alan Schelske

Reader Question: How do you deal with stonewalling?

Then Keith joined me as we talked about stonewalling and tried to roleplay how to deal with stonewalling behaviour. We used some comments from last week’s post on stonewalling:

In my marriage I don’t think we’ve actually ever dealt with an issue completely. My husband won’t talk about the issue, like zero words come out. He doesn’t walk away or get angry, he simply won’t say anything or on the rare occasion he does say anything it turns into him bashing himself. I then feel terrible and end up apologizing for even bringing it up in the first place. I have been taking a new strategy in which I lay out everything that’s wrong tell him what I could be doing better or different then give him time to collect himself and answer usually a day or so. This has turned into him still not addressing the issue and acting as though everything is fine and still wanting his needs met. I honestly feel as though I’m going crazy! I don’t know what to do, he simply won’t engage in conversations that need to be had. I’ve talked to a close friend and she has no advice so I’m at a loss.

My husband is learning and growing in this area, but he is emotionally immature. He 100% meets his responsibilities, is an exceptional provider, reliable, stable, consistent, etc. But talking about his emotions or mine, or certain taboo topics, is off limits. He reverts to the emotional manipulation that the first commenter mentioned, or explodes in anger. I have certainly had my part in it, but I’m learning how to address issues in a way that’s calm, reasonable, doesn’t assume his motives, etc. I do believe part of his emotional immaturity stems from having an emotionally manipulative mother and a passive, unemotional father.

 Over the years I’ve learned to (usually) not respond in anger, but I have a hard time being assertive enough to bring up sensitive topics again after the explosion.

And I 100% agree that this type of emotional immaturity is a huge obstacle to real intimacy.

And we chimed in at the end of the podcast with a reminder that, if discussing emotions when you’re bringing up issues is difficult, then sharing the high/low exercise on a regular basis gives you a chance to talk about emotions in a non-threatening way first. Take our emotional connection FREE email course to help you grow closer and more intimate, step-by-step!

What Does Research Say? Women Are More Emotionally Mature

We talked about two studies that showed that women are more emotionally mature in 11 of 12 marks of emotional maturity, and that having female managers helps companies do better. 

Our conclusions? Women aren’t better than men. It’s simply that women have more practice with emotions and with language, and that gives women necessary skills that benefit everyone. 

So what should we do? Help men grow emotionally, too, and raise our kids to be able to name and process their emotions. There’s no reason that men can’t be emotionally mature. Emotional immaturity is not a masculine trait. We need to get past this idea that emotions are feminine, and instead help all of us to embrace our emotions, since God Himself has emotions. They are part of us. Dealing with them effectively is part of healthy living!

Sign up to the email list so you can be part of our audience participation element!

We want to start an element of the podcast where you all chime in, so we’ll be asking a question in our Friday newsletter that you can answer, and then we’ll be featuring some of those answers. So make sure you’re signed up!

Are you GOOD or are you NICE?

Because the difference matters!

God calls us to be GOOD, yet too often we’re busy being nice. And sometimes, in marriage, that can actually cause problems to be even more entrenched.

What if there’s a better way?

Take me to it!

What do you think of Marc’s definition of emotional maturity? How would you handle stonewalling or self-bashing? Let’s talk in the comments!

Posts in the Emotional Maturity Series:

Four Markers of Emotional Maturity
Do We Use God Language to Avoid Maturity?
2 Keys to Handling Stonewalling Behavior
6 Ways to Grow in Emotional Maturity
A Book List to Help with Emotional Maturity
What Does Emotional Maturity Look Like (Podcast) 
Dealing with Emotional Immaturity in Your Spouse (November 23)
When Christian Resources Perpetuate Your Spouse's Immaturity (November 30)

And check out 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage--my book that covers emotional maturity. Plus there's a FREE group study you can take with it!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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How to Support Your Husband Well

How do you communicate support to your husband–affirmation of who he is as a person?

We’ve been talking about emotional health this month, and it reminded me of something I wrote a while back about the Queen Mother’s relationship with her husband, King George VI. I’d like to revisit that again today, because I think it’s a beautiful picture. 

But before we get to the story, let’s envision what emotionally healthy support looks like in a marriage.

God made us to be relational. He said that it was not good for Adam to be alone, because we do need each other.

What is it, though, that we need from each other? Certainly companionship, and someone to be with and shoot the breeze with. Certainly practical help, because we can’t do all the work alone. Sharing burdens helps immensely.

But more than the practical, God made us for intimacy–to be truly known by one another. Obviously relationships this close, where you truly know someone, will be rare. We do not bare our souls to everyone. But we should bare our souls to someone, or to some people.

However, in baring our souls, there is a danger. What if we are rejected? What if we are laughed at, belittled, or reprimanded? Intimacy requires vulnerability; vulnerability requires risk.

One of our deepest needs is for intimacy that affirms: Intimacy that says, “I see all of you, and I still want to be with you.”

That’s what our children are looking for from us. That’s what leads to securely attached children and emotionally healthy children.

But it also leads to emotionally healthy adults. We all need that feeling of absolute acceptance. In a healthy marriage, you’ll see this.

This doesn’t mean that you accept everything about someone, or that you don’t require them to change destructive behaviours. And it doesn’t mean that if they do something that breaks the covenant that you have to continue to show unconditional affirmation. I’m not talking about accepting someone’s alcoholism or porn use or abuse. But in healthy relationships that are marked by love and goodwill, accepting someone despite foibles is one of the most healing things in the world.

If the issue in your marriage is more that you need something to change, please see these posts instead:

The Iron Sharpens Iron Series: How Marriage Should Make You Better People
When your Husband Won’t Change: How to Communicate what you need
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage (my book about how to build a healthy marriage)

 

Do You Have a Difficult Time Standing up to your Husband?

God wants us aiming for His will. That sometimes will mean that we need to confront our husbands when they’re doing something wrong.

Struggle with how to do that? Are boundaries a difficult concept for you? 9 Thoughts can help!

Take me to it!



















Today I’d like to tell a story about such affirmation and support of a husband, on the part of the Queen Mother.

The fourth season of The Crown has dropped on Netflix (I’m planning on binging it this weekend!), but before there was The Crown, there was The King’s Speech, a masterpiece of a movie that depicted the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II’s mother and father.

King George VI, and his wife Elizabeth, better known to us as “The Queen Mother”, apparently had a lovely, though all too short, marriage. And The Queen Mother has always been one of my favourite royals. I guess the entertainment industry made a pact that they would not tell the story of her marriage until after she died, but then she lived forever! And they finally made this remarkable movie, which I highly recommend.

 

It  follows the true story of Bertie (King George VI’s real name was Albert) overcoming his stuttering as he is thrust into the role of king unexpectedly when his brother abdicates. The king must find his voice to inspire and rally Britain as World War II opens. And, with the help of an unusual speech therapist, he does.

But it is his wife who I was really drawn to. Helena Bonham Carter plays her wonderfully, but I noticed three main things:

She never made an issue out of his stuttering when it was not affecting his role or the nation. When it was simply a personal struggle, she didn’t even notice it and wasn’t bothered by it
When it became an issue because he was made king, she supported and encouraged him to find help
But at the same time, her attitude was never one of babying him. She never showed him anything other than, “I believe you can do it, and that’s all there is to it.”

She was very matter of fact about the whole thing. Before he gave a huge speech, she wouldn’t hold his hand and say, “don’t worry, Bertie, no matter what happens, I’m still here for you!” She simply gave him a quick kiss and said, “you’ll do great.” It was that simple.

And she told him, throughout the movie, why she admired him. He was a great man. He was a kind man. He was an honourable man. When he was ready to give up on speech therapy, she managed to make him keep going. When he quit, she managed to get him to start again. We don’t see all these conversations on screen, but I can imagine the way she handled them. She would say, “I see something wonderful in you. And I want others to see it, too.” When a therapist was ridiculous, she put a stop to it immediately because she didn’t want her husband to go through that. But she always believed in him, at his core.

And on a personal level, she saw beyond the stuttering to the man underneath. She never allowed herself to be personally embarrassed by his stuttering. It was only ever an issue because of his own duties and his own embarrassment, not hers.

We can make two mistakes when it comes to supporting our husbands: the first is that we fail to do it at all.

We notice all his inadequacies, and focus on those, rather than noticing what is good about him. We allow ourselves to be embarrassed by his foibles–even foibles that we already knew about when we married him–and increase his own embarrassment and communicate rejection or contempt. I am not saying that we should not all strive to be better people and to grow, but we can’t expect someone to be something that they are not.

If your husband is not brilliant, you can’t get mad at him for not being a doctor or not having an intellectual job. If he’s just not a go-getter, but is more passive, you can’t get mad at him for not moving up the corporate ladder as fast as you might like. If he isn’t the type who would relish having his own business, you can’t berate him for wanting a secure job.

I think of one man, now retired, that I know well. The best word I can think of to describe him is jolly. Everyone loves him. He exudes friendliness and is the first to offer to help when someone needs him. He worked all his life for one company, and became a manager, and was wonderful with keeping clients.

But he never made a ton of money because he wasn’t the type to strike out on his own. Even though he was very amiable, he also had a very conservative streak in him that wanted the security of a paycheck. That’s what he had always been like. His wife, though, didn’t berate him for this. She knew who her husband was. And they made a great life for themselves, with tons and tons of friends, but without the worry of his own business.

(Now, I realize that many men also fail to support their wives, but just like stonewalling is predominantly, though not entirely, a male issue, so this can be one of the mistakes that many women can make. But it’s not exclusively women, so if it’s the other way around in your marriage, just switch it!)

You may also enjoy:

Help! My friend talks terribly to her husband in public


The second mistake is to confuse supporting your husband with babying your husband.

Supporting an adult should not be done in the same way that you would praise or encourage your four-year-old child. That doesn’t make someone feel supported; that makes him feel like you think he’s a child who can’t handle this without you. That doesn’t communicate support, but instead pity or condescension.

Sometimes we can think we’re affirming our spouse, when we’re really giving him the message, “I don’t think you can handle this.” The Queen Mum (well, she was just Queen Elizabeth back then) always just patted his arm or gave him a quick kiss and said, “you can do it.” He felt that she believed in him (because she did).

Maybe your husband doesn’t stutter, but he might be out of work and worried if he’ll find another job. Or he may have a horrible one where people put him down. Do you treat him like a 4-year-old, or do you communicate, “I hear you, I want to listen, but I totally believe that you can handle this because you’re awesome.”

Supporting your spouse well gives him the key to success. Encourage your husband. Admire and affirm him, but don’t treat him like he’s four-years-old. That’s what a queen did, and it worked on her king.

What do you think? Is this is something you struggle with? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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A Book List to Help You with Emotional Maturity

It’s time for a resource list of books to help you grow more emotionally mature!

We’re in the middle of our emotional maturity series, and yesterday I was talking about 6 ways to help you grow more emotionally mature and more responsible. I promised that today I’d give you a list of books that I highly recommend that have helped me, and that I hope can help you, too.

I know that we’ve got so many resources other than just books, and so I’ll give some suggestions on how to identify healthy resources online as well.

But let’s jump in!

Affiliate links below to Amazon.

Books that help you understand emotions

I’m going to list a few books below that help us learn what healthy looks like. I’ve mentioned so many books in the past that help us cope when things aren’t healthy, and if you know you’re there, then going deeper is likely a good idea.

But I think getting a picture of what a healthy emotional life looks like first makes it easier to handle it when things aren’t healthy. So here are some books that can help you identify health!

 

The Wisdom of Your Heart

Emotions are not bad. Emotions are meant to tell us something.

Learn how to value your emotions and honor your emotions–because God is an emotional God!

 

See it on Amazon!

Marc is going to join us on our podcast this Thursday, too, talking about what emotions can teach us. It’s amazing how we tend to think that certain emotions are “good” and certain ones are “bad”, and we’re not supposed to have the bad ones–or it’s a sin to have the bad ones. Let’s get a more biblical approach to emotions, which will show us better how to handle them, too!

Try Softer

Don’t try harder.

Try softer. What if our approach to how to handle our to-do list, our stress, our daily life is all backwards? Lean into what rest and grace really mean.

See it on Amazon!



























Sacred Pathways

Sometimes it’s not only our emotions we have a hard time accepting or feeling–it’s also God.

And that could be because the way that you naturally relate to God and yearn to experience God is different from the way your church does it, or you’ve been told is the “right” way.

Here are 9 spiritual pathways that we may have as we experience God. Our family found this book so helpful as we all tried to identify our own–and it helped me understand why pen-and-highlighter-with-a-journal devotion times don’t do much for me.

See it on Amazon!



























Daring Greatly

How daring to be vulnerable is the key to emotional growth–and the key to purposeful living.

Brene Brown made a huge splash with her videos on how vulnerability is linked to courage, and in this book she explains it well.

Full disclosure: this is the one book on this list I haven’t read, but so many of you recommended it on Facebook yesterday that I couldn’t leave it out!

See it on Amazon!











Books that help you process your past or understand trauma

Sometimes the issue isn’t just understanding emotions; it’s overcoming past hurts that are holding you back. How do you grow despite trauma? How do you help trauma not take over your life anymore? Here are just a few suggestions:

 

The Body Keeps the Score

This is THE book on post-traumatic stress disorder, and how to process trauma that has taken root in your body and is now impacting your life.

Truly a groundbreaking book, this helps you understand why you may do the things you do, and what may hold you back, and then points to some treatments that can help you move forward.

See it on Amazon!

I know The Body Keeps the Score can be a controversial book right now because its author has, tragically and ironically, been implicated in multiple abuse situations. It is still, however, a great book. If there are others that are just as comprehensive and good that you would recommend, let me know in the comments so that I have a different one to use instead of this one!

 

The Road Less Traveled

The classic that I read over thirty years ago, it’s still so insightful on how growth happens.

Scott Peck wrote this when he was on a spiritual journey. It’s not a Christian book, but you can see, in later books like People of the Lie, that he had come to see God in a personal and real way.

I found this book so illuminating–one of the concepts Peck is trying to describe is grace. It’s very interesting. 

See it on Amazon!











Books that help you navigate healthy relationships and boundaries



















Boundaries

I LOVE the Boundaries books. This is the one that started them all–showing how boundaries are biblical, while letting others walk all over you is not. This shows you how it’s not selfish to say, “I will do this but not that.” It’s actually affirming of God’s calling on your life!

For people who tend to be people pleasers, or who have trouble being assertive, this book can help you understand what healthy relationships look like.

See it on Amazon!



























9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage

This one’s MY book!

Want to know what a healthy marriage should look like? Want to throw away many of the things that we’ve been taught that can actually keep us stuck?

Learn how to walk together towards God’s intention for your marriage, in God’s power for your marriage. Because sometimes the things we erroneously THINK about marriage can hold us back!

See more about the book!



























The Emotionally Healthy Woman

The subtitle of this says it all: eight things you need to quit to reclaim your life.

If you feel like you are overfunctioning in far too many areas of your life, letting yourself get burned out, then you need to learn how to act so that those who are underfunctioning can be encouraged to look more like Christ!

A great book on what healthy responsibility looks like.

See it on Amazon!











Books that help you get more disciplined and develop life skills



















The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this book changed the direction of my life. I don’t think I’d be writing today had I not read this when my girls were babies.

What this helped me understand was how to be purposeful and intentional with my life, and how things weren’t magically going to happen unless I put things in place to make them happen. Just an amazing book.

See it on Amazon!



























Your God is Too Safe

Do you struggle with getting excited about your devotions? Do you struggle with wondering if you really love God?

This is an awesome book that helps you see God in a different way–and helps you see spiritual disciplines in a new, exciting way.

This book helped get me out of a several-year-long drought with God, and helped me reinvigorate my disciplines with Jesus.

See it on Amazon!



























Atomic Habits

Want to exercise more? Use social media less? Do housework in a more organized way? Be more productive at work?

We all have these goals of little things we want to change in our lives, but how do we make that change actually happen?

I read this book two years ago, and it’s been amazing to help me figure out why I couldn’t break stupid habits, and how to actually accomplish some of the small changes that bring big results!

See it on Amazon!



















How to Identify Good Resources to Help You Grow Emotionally

Obviously this is only a tiny list of the books that I have found most helpful in my own life. I would also add a book on money management, since that’s such an important thing to learn. And, of course, many of these things can be learned through podcasts, blogs, or YouTube channels as well. 

Rebecca has learned so much about cleaning routines and baby routines through YouTube, and Katie loves listening to money management channels online!

The key is to always be learning.

But I’m also very aware that many resources, even in the church, are distinctly unhelpful. 

 

My litmus test to see if a resource is healthy:

How does that resource treat the idea of boundaries?

If a resource encourages you to have boundaries, then the resource is likely emotionally healthy. If the resource tells you to continually deny yourself, or just to pray harder, then the resource is likely not healthy.

Please don’t misunderstand me: It’s not that I’m against prayer. I’m all for it! But so often resources use “prayer” as an excuse to not exercise good judgment or boundaries. Just pray harder and let the person keep treating  you badly, abusing you, or walking all over you. Just pray harder and good things will happen to you–instead of acting responsibly. 

Prayer should not be an excuse to avoid doing the hard things that God wants us to do!

God made us with limits, with boundaries, and when those are trespassed, we will become emotionally unhealthy. When we understand God’s purpose for our life, and that we can’t accomplish His purpose if we are allowing others to run roughshod over us, or if we’re avoiding responsibility, then we’ll be able to grow.

So as you’re seeking out resources online, ask yourself: Does this help me make good choices? Does this help me become more responsible? Does this give me more margins so that I can concentrate on what God wants for my life? Does this encourage me to help other people around me look more like Jesus, or does this encourage me to enable sin? 

That’s how I find good resources to help me grow.

I’d love to hear what you find helpful, too. Any podcasts that have helped you grow? Books that have helped you grow? YouTube channels you love? Leave them in the comments!

What would you add? Do you have a litmus test? A favourite book that has changed your life? A favourite podcast? Let’s talk in the comments!

Posts in the Emotional Maturity Series:

Four Markers of Emotional Maturity
Do We Use God Language to Avoid Maturity?
2 Keys to Handling Stonewalling Behavior
6 Ways to Grow in Emotional Maturity
Dealing with Emotional Immaturity in Your Spouse (November 23)
When Christian Resources Perpetuate Your Spouse's Immaturity (November 30)

And check out 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage--my book that covers emotional maturity. Plus there's a FREE group study you can take with it!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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The EMOTIONAL MATURITY SERIES: 6 Ways to Grow in Emotional Maturity

How do you become more emotionally mature?

We’re in the middle of our series on emotional maturity. We’ve looked at what emotional maturity is, and how sometimes people use “God language” to avoid emotional maturity. We’ve looked at what to do if your spouse is stonewalling and is avoiding dealing with emotions.

This week I want to turn practical and talk at how to nurture emotional maturity, and how to grow.

I think there are two big elements of maturity:

emotional intelligence (emotional maturity)
responsibility, or living up to your commitments and living on an even keel

Some people have responsibility but not emotional intelligence. They work hard, they get promotions, they pay their bills, they mow their lawns. They look like they have it all together. But they also stonewall, blow up into a rage, give the silent treatment, shut down if you try to talk about emotions, have difficulty with physical touch unless it’s leading to sex, have a hard time being tender, and rarely say what’s on their heart. They may even veer towards certain addictions, like alcohol or video games.

Then there are others who can talk for hours, who can tell you everything they are feeling, who are compassionate, who notice when someone is hurting, who listen to your concerns–but they’re also always late, don’t have ambition or a job, and can’t be relied upon.

What we want is to have BOTH.

Looking back at my own life, I’d say that both Keith and I were quite responsible and disciplined when we married, but we weren’t necessarily emotionally mature.

In fact, in many ways we were rather immature. Part of that was age (we were quite young), but part was also that we hadn’t thought about a lot of the markers of maturity, and we hadn’t confronted a lot of our own past hurts or patterns of behavior so that we could figure out what was healthy and helpful and what wasn’t.

I think it’s quite common for two emotionally immature people, like Keith and me, to marry. First, people of high emotional intelligence tend to marry each other, so that leaves those with lower emotional intelligence also marrying another! Often we may be emotionally immature in different ways, though. One person could be a workaholic, while another is a people pleaser. One person could be stable financially but stunted emotionally, while the other is a breath off fresh air but has no life skills.

And often one or both has trauma that hasn’t really been dealt with.

Most of us have hurts that affected you as a kid, either from a dysfunctional family where emotions weren’t handled well, or from abuse, or from huge losses, like the death of a parent or sibling or other significant person. And you haven’t totally processed it yet, and because of that you don’t always make decisions for good reasons. You’re not able to see clearly because you have so much fogging everything up.

Marriage can be a huge catalyst for emotional growth.

Suddenly you’re in this relationship where you’re rubbing against another person, and the things that you could hide you can’t hide anymore. For me it was fear of rejection. Because of my past, I was so scared of Keith leaving that it coloured how I handled conflict, how I handled fear–so much, really. Our first few years were quite rocky, but we knew that we wanted to grow, and so we worked on things. Yes, we developed some bad patterns that took decades to totally eradicate. It wasn’t always easy, but we knew we loved each other and we knew the other was fundamentally a good person who loved God.

And so we endeavoured to grow together.

Us in our first apartment!

One of the big ways we grew was in how we handled conflict. We used to go around and around in circles, trying to figure out who was “right”. Then we realized that we were missing the emotional component of it, and now instead we focus on “what emotional need do we both have right now that’s not met?” And we look for solutions instead of blame. It’s changed everything. This concept is covered in 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, which many have told me is actually my best book, though it’s the one I talk about the least! Check it out. 

 

 

Do you have a hard time asking for what you want?

You can change the dynamic in your marriage and make talking about your own needs easier!

If your marriage is in a communication rut, it’s time for some change.

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Sometimes growing together looks like having to unlearn very bad patterns of relating and having to deal with trauma from your past. Sometimes it simply looks like learning to be more selfless and less selfish now that you’re married. It isn’t always a huge transformation–and, hey, we all have some learning to do!

Today, then, I thought I’d share some ways that you can grow in emotional maturity.

1. Read books on emotions, on conflict, on relationships, on growth

When we lived in Toronto when our girls were very small, every week we would go on an outing to the library. We would get all new books for the girls, and I often picked up books for myself. That was when library systems were going online, and I could browse the entire Toronto Public Library book catalogue, and order books to my branch, and have them waiting for me when we went on our weekly trek. I devoured so many books on understanding hurts, and trauma, and personality, and more.

Some of those books changed my life, and tomorrow I’ll dedicate the post to great books to read to grow in emotional intelligence and discipline. And if anyone has any suggestions, leave them in the comments today!

2. Surround yourself with mature, healthy people.

Get rid of friends who hold you back, even if you had fun partying with them when you were younger. Be with people who you want to be like.

This can be trickier if you still live in the same city where you grew up or spent your young adult years, especially if those years weren’t exactly healthy. But we tend to become like the people we hang out with, so make sure you’re hanging out with strong, healthy people.

3. Go to a church that helps you grow, not that holds you back

As we were talking about in our post about using God-language to stop emotional maturity, for many people, church is what stops them from growing up. It can do this in several ways, including telling people that faith should replace responsibility (if you feel God telling you to do something, you should do it!), or by solidifying certain gender roles that give men power with no responsibility. He has the ability to decide for the family and to declare things right or wrong, but there’s no accountability for him. And then can be labelled as sinning or as being disrespectful if she brings up things that she thinks are wrong. We’ll be looking more next week at how evangelical resources can actually encourage men to be immature, while demanding much maturity of women.

Rebecca and me outside LIttle Trinity Anglican Church in Toronto, one of my favourite church experiences we’ve had. They supported us so much when our son was born two weeks after this picture was taken. He passed away a month later.

When I look back on our family’s history with different churches, often we stayed in churches which did have a culture that worked against maturity because we had friends there, and we wanted community. But finally it got to be too bad and we left. I wish now that we had left earlier. By going, we signaled, “This is a safe church, because look at these good people who go there!” And then we give our seal of approval to a church that gives out advice, especially on marriage and parenting, that we actually thought was harmful. But we volunteered so much and worked so hard in that church, and we gave a ton of money, so we built up a church that then went on to hurt many, many families. Even though we didn’t believe what the church was teaching, by not leaving, we propped it up.

Many of us would help ourselves, and those who came after us, if we left churches earlier and went to ones that fostered emotional health.

4. Consider moving to a city where you can make a fresh start

This is a tricky one, and isn’t possible or helpful for everyone, especially if you rely on family for help with small children. But I have known so many couples who come from enmeshed families who I think would have done so much better had they moved away at the start of their marriage, rather than staying in a dysfunctional dynamic. I have also known several large dysfunctional families where the couples who ended up doing the best were the ones who left the area early.

Even if your family is healthy, there’s a different dynamic when you’re getting to know people who only know you now, and don’t remember you from when you were 9.

This is one of the big reasons I encouraged my girls to go away for university. I wanted them to be able to figure out who they were and who they wanted to be, and that’s much harder when you live in a small community where everyone knows you.

If you can’t move to a new city, consider at least switching churches, even if your church is a good one. If you find that people still think of you in the same way they did ten years ago, it may be helpful to meet new people who only know you now.

5. Get counseling if you even think you may need it

I’ve gone for counseling at several different points in my life. One was early in my marriage when I was dealing with rejection issues and with vaginismus; one was after our son died. Sometimes it just helps to talk to someone.

And remember: it tends to be safer to see a licensed counselor than it does a biblical counselor (lots of licensed counselors are Christians, too!).

6. Develop Discipline

Finally, Keith and I both realized that in many ways we were still kids, and we had to grow up. I spent a lot of time reading about how to be a good parent; about how to invest money; about the best ways to spend my time. He was working 120 hours a week and also studying for exams, and he had no choice but to be disciplined.

I had to develop a routine to deal with the fact that I was alone with my girls so much, since he was at the hospital all the time. I had to make sure that we ate healthy meals and that he had food to take with him, so that we weren’t spending our whole paycheck on him eating out.

But I had no idea how to do these things at first. I knew very little about cooking, or cleaning, or developing routines. I just read, and tried, and put things into practice.

When we realize that we want to be grown ups, and we don’t want to live like kids anymore, we can make a lot of changes on our own!

 

 

So there you go–6 ways to grow in emotional maturity!

Which ones stand out to you? Would you add a seventh? Let’s talk in the comments!

Posts in the Emotional Maturity Series:

Four Markers of Emotional Maturity
Do We Use God Language to Avoid Maturity?
2 Keys to Handling Stonewalling Behavior
6 Ways to Grow in Emotional Maturity
Dealing with Emotional Immaturity in Your Spouse (November 23)
When Christian Resources Perpetuate Your Spouse's Immaturity (November 30)

And check out 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage--my book that covers emotional maturity. Plus there's a FREE group study you can take with it!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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Can We Talk about Comments Being Hijacked When (Some) Men Want to Talk About Themselves?

Sometimes, when I write a post about how women should handle it if their husbands do something wrong, the comments go all squirrelly when some male commenters try to make it about themselves.

The topic of the blog post may be women being hurt and misunderstood, but often (some) men turn it around to, “but women need to understand men!”

This is a dynamic I’ve watched in the comments section and tried to moderate and tried to find a good balance, but it can be difficult.

Recently, I shared something about this on Facebook, and then, in the comments to that post, a really interesting discussion occurred that I’d like to share today.

Before I do so, a big disclaimer:

I really value my male readers. About 25% of the people reading this blog are male. Most are here to get help, and to learn, and many wonderful male commenters encourage other people and ask genuine questions in the comments.

However, when things do go off base in the comments section, it often is because of a small number of predominantly male commenters. So let me share what I wrote, and what other women said in return.

Here’s what I said on Facebook:

Should men’s feelings be our primary consideration when it comes to sex?

For the last two months on the blog, I’ve been highlighting the orgasm gap: How men orgasm about 95% of the time, while women only reliably orgasm 48% of the time. A lot of women never orgasm at all.

I’ve been encouraging women to speak up. I’ve been sharing studies that show that SOME men (not all) can be quite clueless about what brings women pleasure.

And in response, almost all men commenting have said, “well, men don’t mean to do these things. You have to be careful of men’s feelings.”

May I suggest that this is actually THE PROBLEM?

We’re putting the finishing touches on our Orgasm Course, which launches on Monday!

(UPDATE: The Orgasm Course is now live!)

But let me tell you–after doing a ton of research on this, and after looking at our survey results of 20,000 women, we had to spend a lot of the course telling women that THEIR EXPERIENCE MATTERS, despite what your husband is feeling.

In fact, your pleasure matters more than your husband’s ego. That doesn’t mean you should belittle or be harsh or mean; but it does mean that you’re allowed to speak up!

So many evangelical books have told women: “your husband needs to know you enjoy sex. He can’t enjoy if you don’t show him you enjoy it!” But they put no onus on men to make it pleasurable for women. And then they tell women that men need sex in a way that women will never, ever understand.

So women go into sex assuming that men’s need for orgasm exceeds their own; that men’s route to orgasm (intercourse) is what they’re required to do, while women’s best routes to orgasm (foreplay and other sexual play) are optional. We’re told that we shouldn’t speak up, or we may affect his ego.

As I said to a commenter just this morning:

“I don’t think the orgasm gap will ever be closed until men’s feelings stops being the primary go-to issue that men jump to when things like this are brought up, and until the injustice of so many women’s sexual experience in marriage is given the importance it deserves.

If the main message women are hearing is–“but remember men’s feelings!!!!” then how are women ever going to feel that they will be able to speak up assertively about their own pleasure?

Remember that one of the main things keeping women back from orgasm is feeling as if their pleasure is secondary to what their husbands are feeling.

I think the primary message here should be: You deserve pleasure; Please speak up if your husband has been ignoring your pleasure. It is not okay to be treated that way. And when you speak up–chances are you BOTH want to find a solution!

Let’s give women’s feelings in this case the main emphasis, and maybe we’d see some change actually happen.”

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Facebook Post

An interesting discussion broke out in general, but one thread in particular had several women expressing how frustrated they were at the comments section on this blog.

I’ll post some of their comments, and some of my replies:

Sheila, honestly, it’s the only annoying thing about your blog…all the super-long male comments defending their own feelings. And, if I may humbly suggest, you’re wasting your energy that is otherwise so well spent on reforming the Christian world when you answer these men. They aren’t looking to learn anything, only to hijack the conversation and when we engage, we allow them to do that. They do serve a purpose in the sense that they illustrate your point for you about the male ego and they have the right to express their opinion on these public forums just like anyone else, but we don’t have to reply,

Reader #1

I then popped in and explained how we think about the comments behind the scenes:

This is actually a big debate behind the scenes–do we cut them off and ban them (believe me, we have banned SO MANY commenters; you should see the stuff that comes in) or do we keep engaging? And there are some that I just don’t let through for a while, but then start again. What we’ve decided (and I’m not sure this is the right answer, but this is what we’ve come to) is that because so much of what I talk about is “evangelical teaching too often says X, and really we should think Y”, then having someone in the comments defending X shows that there is, indeed, a reason why this post needed to be written. When I stopped letting male commenters in for a while a few years ago people kept telling me I was talking about stuff that wasn’t necessary. And especially with our book coming out in the spring, we do want to show that this is, indeed, a widespread problem in the church. The other issue is that by allowing dissenting viewpoints and engaging with them, we show women how they can handle it when they hear dissenting things from their husbands and pastors, and we show them how to identify faulty arguments. I’m still not sure that’s the right strategy, but it’s what we’ve come to right now. Rebecca is far stricter on this than me; she’d ban everyone in a heartbeat! She is telling me I need to limit people to a certain number of comments per post, and she’s likely right. So just know that we do think about this behind the scenes, too, and pray that we’ll make the right decision! 

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Facebook Post

And then others shared their thoughts! (And I’m going to combine comments to make this shorter). 

It is so discouraging to have a post about how we wrongly hear men’s needs are the focus that counts AND then have the comments allowed to focus on how women need to consider men’s needs. WHY is this allowed when it *can* be focused on women as the post teaches?

…I totally agree that men need to be part of the discussion! The dilemma is how to do that without women’s needs being sidelined.

Imho one of the main reasons church relationship books prioritize male centric sex and men’s needs for “respect” is because they won’t engage unless the couples relationship blueprint ensures they “won’t be set up to not be treated fairly”

They won’t “play a game they can’t win” is something men often say.  Anyway thanks for being open to the feedback! Appreciate all your hard work!

Reader #2

Maybe it’s less about letting through a number of comments and more about the number of threads (or maybe that’s what you meant)? If most of the threads are having to defend the post, it can be frustrating. But letting through one or two threads does demonstrate the problem. At first I was honestly pretty surprised by the lack of awareness from many of the men who comment…like, you do realize you’re just proving the point she tried to address, right? But I agree it’s really useful to have those quotes for later posts to demonstrate that this is still an issue. So who knows. Maybe we all just decide to comment – “thanks for proving her point” and leave it at that.

Reader #3

After much discussion, one commenter summed up everything with this observation/suggestion:

It’s worth publishing on your blog, at least once, to all commenters: if your reply to a post is “not all men are that way,” then you ought to rethink your response.

If that’s the point they are trying to make, you have very likely already said something in your post about “most men” or “some men.” …The rest of the Christian world is brow beating wives about male emotional needs. It does not need to be mentioned more than once on a thread. Once reminds us the need is still there. More than once and the conversation becomes about big, strong, male fragility and our duty as meek, frail, feminine wives to protect it no matter what it costs us. 

Reader #2

So what do you think about the comments section?

Personally, I value discussion, and I really value our male commenters. 

But I also want this blog to be a safe space–both for women, and for men who are honestly seeking to grow. 

I don’t want this blog to be a safe space for emotionally immature men, though, who are blaming women for their problems, and I have no desire to make the blog a safe space for them.

My own take, as I said above, is that I like to be able to  have some back and forth so that people see that (a) I’m not making up this problem, it really is out there! and (b) here’s how you can respond in real life when someone makes this argument. 

Rebecca would let through less; I would let through maybe a bit more.

We have had men on this blog who have really transformed.

I think of Phil, whom I love and value dearly, who came here not perfect and never claimed to be perfect, but who always engages and listens. And I think of Nathan who is here to encourage. 

I want to keep that. But I also want this primarily to be a safe community for women, too. So let me know–do you avoid the comments section? Do you refrain from commenting because of the fear of what other commenters may reply? I’d really love to hear your thoughts.

I don’t have all the answers on this one, but I’d love to know what you think.

What’s the balance? Allow two comments per person per post? Allow one male-centered thread, but only one? Allow MORE comments because everyone should have the right to speak?

Let me know–in the comments!

(And by the way, I’m so sorry that you can’t reply to other people’s comments right now–or at least, when you do, it doesn’t show up as a reply to them. We know about the problem and we’re trying to fix it, but Connor, my tech person, is taking a few days off because his mom is visiting.)

 

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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The Podcast: No Wonder Abuse Victims Don’t Speak Up!

A few weeks ago I deleted a podcast I did for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

In it, I told a story of something that happened to me when I was 18, and I was raged at in public. I tried to tell a story which was nuanced–I had done something wrong as well. I tried to show how, when you are raged at, you feel shame. You take responsibility for fixing the problem, even when it wasn’t yours to fix. You ask others for help, and others often aren’t helpful.

But in telling the story, I ended up  muddying the waters. I told it wrong, and people felt that I was the one primarily at fault. So I took it down. I only ever meant to use it as an illustration, but it became a big problem.

This week, Rebecca and I revisited it–not to tell the story again (I’m really never touching that one again!), but instead to raise some bigger issues about what the whole thing taught us about the difficulty in talking about these issues. 

So tune in!

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast

And here’s the YouTube version! (For some reason we were dumb and it wasn’t focused for the first 25 minutes. I’m really sorry. But the latter part is. And you can still listen!)

 

Timeline of the Podcast:

0:50 Addressing My Podcast Mistake
3:30 Should we expect victim’s stories to be told perfectly?
7:00 Victims don’t have to be faultless
9:55 An Excerpt on Abuse vs Normal fights & dysfunction
12:18 You don’t deserve it, even if you trigger it.
15:35 Rage vs Anger
22:03 How we talk about abuse can confuse victims and harm them
30:01 It’s all about dynamics!
35.52 It’s not always clear cut, so we need to dig deep

A few things I learned since that podcast:

1. We shouldn’t have to tell our stories perfectly

32 years have passed since that incident happened, and it really triggers no emotion in me. I have no ongoing connection with the guy in the story, and he was never even that close to me. This is about as emotionally distant as one can get from a story like this.

And yet, even I, at that much emotional distance, didn’t tell my story well. I used words that had people picturing something that didn’t happen.

Now imagine that a woman in an abusive marriage is trying to seek help. She IS emotionally involved in this. She’s very confused, very shameful, very desperate. How likely is it that she will tell her story perfectly?

Instead of trying to pick apart people’s stories, or automatically discounting them (as I have done to others in the past), what I’ve learned is that if someone thinks something scarring happened to them, it probably did.

2. There often aren’t perfect victims.

That’s why I chose the particular story I did. I was at fault. I did something wrong as well.

When it comes to abuse, the abuser almost always tells the victim, “you made me do it.” They triggered it. Just because someone is not a perfect victim does not mean they weren’t victimized.

3. Just because someone triggered another person doesn’t mean that they deserved what happened to them.

Many people commented after the original podcast that likely the person who raged at me had been abused as a child, and I triggered that. I agree. That is likely what happened.

But that still does not make it okay.

Just because we trigger someone’s insecurities or pain does not mean that they have the right to treat someone badly in response.

One of the characteristics of abuse is that the victim spends her (or his) life walking on eggshells. You’re always wondering if you’re going to trigger something or set someone off. Before any conversation, you try to judge their mood. How are they feeling today? How safe are you?

That’s not normal. Most wives don’t spend their lives trying to read their husband’s mood to see what kind of night they will have. If you’re walking on eggshells, that’s a bad sign.

4. We don’t give enough credence to what rage does.

I want to spend some time in December talking about anger and rage, but if you have never been on the receiving end of someone’s rage–let me tell you, it’s scary. It’s humiliating. It makes you feel like you want to fall into a hole, but it also makes  you extremely fearful. Being the victim of rage is different than merely having someone yell at you.

I’ve had several emails lately from women whose husbands rage at them, and I do want to talk about this more. It isn’t okay. And those of us who have never experienced it may not understand how different it is from regular anger.

5. Dynamics tell the bigger picture which need to be paid attention to.

We often focus on the WHAT: What actually happened?

I think we should focus on the WHO: Who is the one walking on eggshells? Who is the one apologizing? Who is the one trying to change their behaviour? Who is the one searching for solutions? Who is the one doing the blaming, and who is the one accepting the blame?

When we look at dynamics, it often becomes very clear whether a relationship is safe or not, or whether it’s abusive at its core.

Finally, let’s remember: abused people are often the ones desperate to seek help for their relationships.

That’s why women like these are more likely to buy marriage books and go to women’s Bible studies and go to conferences.

Marriage authors, then, have to always understand that a large proportion of those reading their works will be in destructive relationships. People in trouble look for help. And often they don’t realize they’re being abused, so part of the job of marriage authors is to help people identify when something isn’t right.

I think that’s why so many people have told me that I helped them get out of an abusive relationship, even though  I don’t really write about abuse primarily. Because I try so hard to help people see when “this is not normal” or “this is not right”, people who come here searching for help for their marriage are finally able to name what is happening to them. And then I point them to others who can help, including:

Natalie Hoffman at Flying Free (and check out her book Is It Me?)
Leslie Vernick, with a great blog and support group, author of The Emotionally Destructive Marriage
Sarah McDugal on Facebook, with a large community of women getting free from emotionally abusive relationships
Gretchen Baskerville at Life Saving Divorce (for those in dangerous marriages)

And also check out these books, which I’ve read in the last few months and found very helpful:

The Bible Doesn’t Tell Me So by Helen Paynter. If you’re in an abusive marriage, but you feel as if you can’t leave because of what the Bible says about marriage and about how wives should submit, this book takes you through all the Bible passages that are commonly used to tell women they must stay, and shows how that isn’t a correct reading of them.
The Headship of Men and the Abuse of Women by Kevin Giles. A great book looking at how certain theologies are correlated to abuse, and how we can see more clearly what God’s heart for marriage is.

 

The Emotionally Destructive Marriage


Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage


Boundaries in Marriage






















Other Things Mentioned in This Podcast:

Message to a Baptist Church: You Preached Death to One Hundred Women Today (the article I read an excerpt from)
Join the Launch Team for The Great Sex Rescue!
Sign up for the Email List
Pre-Order The Great Sex Rescue

Other Links You May Find Helpful:

10 Signs of an Abusive Marriage
How Do I Admit to Myself I’m Being Abused?
10 Things to Know About Emotionally Destructive Relationships
A Letter to the Woman with a Controlling Husband

I know in the past I’ve heard people’s stories of abuse and dismissed them, because they didn’t add up to me. Later, I realized that I had missed telltale signs.

What about you? Have you ever had someone ask for help, and only realized later that it was abuse? Or have you tried to tell your own story of abuse and not been believed?

Let’s talk in the comments!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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