Speaker 1
Guilt trips, manipulation, pouting. Have any of these ugly habits reared up in your marriage? What are the daily practices you can adopt to make for a better marriage? Well, stay tuned for a marital tune-up from Pastor Mike Fabarez today on Focal Point.
And welcome to Focal Point. I'm your host, Dave Drouy, and it's time for another Q and A session with Pastor Mike Fabarez. Well, every week at this time, we clear our schedule to entertain questions from our listening family like this one.
Let's enter the pastor's study with Pastor Mike and his wife Carlyn, along with Focal Point executive director Jay Worton, to find out how you can avoid the counseling office and why you don't need a referee when you learn to give and take as one team.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Dave. I am here with Pastor Mike and I'm also joined again by his wife, Carlyn Fabarez. Hello again. Thank you again both for being here.
Now, last time we discussed what a biblical marriage looks like and how you strive to fulfill your roles as husbands and wives. Today, I want to get a little more practical.
I want to turn our discussion towards maintaining a godly marriage. What are the things that you guys do individually, you do together to make sure that you're continuing to please God with your marriage?
Speaker 3
Well, I know you're going to say time with God, right?
Speaker 4
Absolutely.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And I know very practically because I see it every day. Your first thing to do is to get with God in the morning, get the Bible out, and get your prayer list out.
I every morning get to the office; I go early to the office and spend time in the Word. You spend time on the couch in the den, and then you get to work.
We need that. We can’t do it without time in the Word individually.
Speaker 4
Right. And for me, it only works really, honestly, if I get up before everybody else. As hard as that is, when it's really dark outside, once the house starts moving around and everybody's up, that time just disappears. It evaporates. If I make it the third or fourth thing, that's for me personally.
So I get up first and I get down there and get some time in the Word, reading it and then also studying it and then having concentrated prayer time. You know, praying without ceasing is great, but God needs to have a conversation with us, an intense, personal one on one. Let's have a big chunk of time.
So I try to break it up into those three parts: praying concentrated, reading my Bible to get an overall view, and spending some time studying a piece of scripture every day, all three.
Speaker 3
And I think that individual time in the Word is critical because so many couples rush to, let's just study the Bible together. When you do that, as we call it, the L shaped Amen, it's easy for you to look at a passage and go, yes, honey, you need to apply the Word right here.
And that's the problem so often with rushing into this corporate time of getting down into the Bible together, as opposed to every morning we open the word. Like James 1 says, it speaks to me about me being the right kind of dad, about me being the right kind of husband, about me being the right kind of pastor. The Word has to have its ability to affect us directly.
And that's why I think one of the best things you can do for your spouse is to get by yourself in a corner, in the closet, or on the couch when no one's up, or staying up late, sitting in the corner of the bedroom and just getting the Word in your life to where you're letting it convict you.
Speaker 4
Absolutely. And then that translates into everything else that you need to do that day. I mean, one of the things I try to do is I even look over my husband's schedule before he walks through and walks down the stairs and out the house.
Because then I can be intelligent and ask him, hey, I saw you have that thing today. I'm praying for that meeting that you have. And then always being able to eventually circle back, whether it's texting or later on, but making it be a practical time where I'm not just thinking about myself.
There is an element, part of my quiet time where I am thinking about my husband and the kind of wife that I could be to him.
Speaker 3
And what's great is sharing our calendar the way we do. Of course, my calendar is shared with lots of people, but to have her calendar on my calendar so I can see where she’s at, what her appointments are, and what challenges she’s going to face that day.
And she can see my schedule and the appointments I have and the things that I've got going on. We can pray for each other that way; we can support each other that way.
Speaker 4
That's key.
Speaker 3
That's the kind of communication every marriage needs. You've got to communicate and you've got to focus on communication.
I think early on, it may have been in our premarital. Our pastor told us, you know, before you leave the office, you know, let your wife know you're done with the day and you're coming home.
I think I still do that.
Speaker 4
Yes, he did. He just. I mean. And that's such a great thing, I have to say, as the wife. I appreciate that so much.
He used to call me as he was leaving the office. Now we just text. "I'm on my way home." And that's like a mental set in my mind. I know now it means I have to transition from being here alone, getting everything done to, he's walking in the door.
I'm mentally prepared; he's walking in the door. Even if I'm making dinner, even if I'm getting ready to go out with him, I know he's coming. And it changes my mind about what the evening holds.
Speaker 3
And I think too many husbands, unfortunately, have a demand on their wife that's just not realistic in terms of they see their schedule as fluid, they see their demands as changing, but they don't see their wives that way. I think to live with your wife in an understanding way is to recognize that she may have had a day that the night we had planned isn't going to work out. And I think you've got to be flexible.
Well, I think the godliness part of that, because that's what Jay, you were asking about, is knowing that what I want from my wife is for her to please God. That's what I want. And I know that as she loves God and wants to serve God, I want to help her do that.
It may not be that she's going to meet the expectations of my domestic plan of what I think it should look like at a given day or this particular off day or whatever it is. So I want her to be able to be who God wants her to be. And that means I've got to be a bit more flexible than I sadly see a lot of husbands being with their wives.
Speaker 4
But then, frankly, there is something to being pleasing to your own husband and doing the kinds of things that your own husband would prefer.
And, you know, when I talk to wives, I want to remind them that they need to be listening even to the subtle hints that their husbands, you know, say to them.
Speaker 3
I think it works both ways. You definitely want a husband to help a wife be clear about the things that please her. And I think most husbands want to please their wives. We would like our wives to be happy with how we are functioning in our homes, and I think it’s really important to encourage your wife to state her desire clearly. I believe that works with 80 to 90% of wives.
I mean, perhaps there are some who might be more demanding, with long lists of expectations, but most wives are trying to keep peace and make things good at home. A godly husband is going to encourage his wife to express her needs by asking, “How can I help you? Let me hear your desire in this situation.” It’s important for her to state her desire clearly and tell him what she would like to see.
While he may not always be able to fulfill every request, he needs to know what it is. Most of the time, he will work hard to get it done. Instead of just assuming what it takes to please a spouse, it’s crucial to have open communication. There are many expectations and assumptions about what it means to be a good husband or a good wife. In reality, sometimes we need to sit down and ask our spouse, “What is it? What would you like to see here?”
By doing this, we can realize that, because we love our spouse, we will try to do what we can to make that happen.
Speaker 4
And honestly, that gets rid of the guilt trips and the manipulating, the pouting. Because you've been clear and you know, doesn't mean that being clear always means you get what you want, right? You can't just, you know, continually demand things and always expect to get exactly what you want. But there is a peace and a contentment in that.
Instead of this strife that can happen back and forth between a married couple where we're assuming that they know certain things or we're guilt tripping them into certain things, there's a piece when you've stated your desire clearly and even had the other person say, "I'd really like to do that, but I just can't right now. This has to happen instead."
I mean, you can embrace that as a wife if you know that you've had that moment of communication and go, okay, it doesn't work this time. Maybe next time it will. Maybe the thing that I wanted to happen next time will happen.
Speaker 3
And when you think about it, and of course in pastoral ministry we have to deal with this all the time. But when you finally get a marriage that's so strained they're coming in for counseling, that's all that's actually happening, right? So much of it is you've got a referee that sits there and tries to surface all of that.
Well, if husbands and wives can work at that ahead of time, it takes out the manipulation and the guesswork and the presumption and all the politics that goes into a marriage. As opposed to having those times where you sit down and you say, let's make this right. How can we make this work?
We all want a peaceful marriage, but we have to get down to the level of what it is that our spouse needs or what is it that our spouse wants. You can't find a verse for this. But the godly practice that we have found most helpful and we've been vigilant about is making sure we have our date night.
Speaker 4
That's exactly what I was going to say. You got to have a date night.
Speaker 3
Well, that's when you finally get a chance to not sit there and have all these other distractions. You can sit there even if you don't have a big budget. You can go and drive through some, take a walk, sit at a park and just talk and say, here's a night we're going to be together between dinner hour and the time we're going to go to sleep.
And if you've got kids, as we did, we raised three kids, you know, you've got a sitter, you got grandparents over, whatever, and you are going to be together, communicating until the end of that day is over.
And that is where you can have these kinds of conversations and avoid the counseling office because you won't need it if you can communicate in those conversations.
Speaker 4
And it's so important to know that that time is coming because there's always, I don't know how to put it, except to say business. There's always business that has to be taken care of in a marriage.
If I know there's a time in two days where I'm going to be sitting down, either having a walk or a yogurt, or actually going to a restaurant and being served, I know that I'm going to get around to being able to talk about those things. However, I would caution women not to make that a dumping ground. Your date should be a time of back and forth communication, not a dumping ground for you to just get angry and tell him everything you don't like.
For me, I would sometimes text him before date night and say, "Hey, I need to do a little business. Can we talk for maybe 10 minutes sometimes during our date?" Then, when the business is over, there's no grudge holding, there's no frustration. We just move on.
We've done our business and we move on. We've done that in our marriage probably the whole way through, where we just deal with our business and then we move on to our dates.
Speaker 3
You know, Jay, you asked about how to put these things into practice that, you know, we think will please God. And I've got to say, as a husband, I think to be purposeful, thoughtful, and intentional about being a leader in your home, which doesn't mean that you're sitting in the throne, you know, with people serving you in terms of, you know, your lazy boy recliner or whatever with the remote control in your hand.
But, I mean, you're really caring about planning. You're thinking about, you know, saving for things that need to be saved for, repairing things that are broken. You are planning out the next summer vacation. You're taking a leadership role and trying to provide kind of the structure and support for your family.
I mean, we'll go through budgets and spreadsheets at work and care about the bottom line, but we come home, we don't even think about that. And just, if we have any money left over, we might go on vacation. It's not the kind of planning that we need. We need more intentionality in husbands in particular.
Speaker 4
Absolutely. There's no doubt. And, you know, I'm sure that some wives are listening to this going, yeah, I wish my husband would do that, but he doesn't.
Speaker 3
I think every time it happens, though, I mean, a husband can rightly say, you know, there are some wives, when they try to do something that's purposeful, sometimes they get their hands slapped.
Speaker 4
No, that's true.
Speaker 3
So both of us have to work at that.
Speaker 4
Right? I have to work at being a.
Speaker 3
Leader, and you have to work at saying, I'm going to encourage my husband's leadership.
Speaker 4
No, totally, you're right. And the steps, the things that they do, like this honeydew list you did this week. We need to say thank you.
The steps that our husbands make towards being a leader in our home, when they initiate prayer with the kids, when they talk to them about that struggle they had at school and bring the conversation around to Christ with the kids. We need to be thankful.
We need to encourage that. We need to be their cheerleader. And definitely, that would encourage more of the kind of behavior that we would love to see in our husbands and our marriages if we would just be there behind them, encouraging them along in these steps.
Speaker 3
You're describing something that involves kind of a graciousness toward another person that some people are in short supply of in their marriage. Unfortunately, they don't think in terms of, "my spouse is a flawed human being, just like I am," and that needs the kind of grace I give myself.
When the Bible says, "love your neighbor as yourself," you know, when I mess up, I don't hold grudges against myself. I don't beat myself up. I don't look in the mirror and go, "I hate you." Right? I mean, I get over it. I forgive myself, and I move on. We need to do that with our spouse.
We have to care for our spouse in a way that we would care for ourselves, just in cutting ourselves some slack. I mean, when we cut someone off on the freeway, we're always going, "oops, sorry, I messed up." But when someone else cuts us off, we read them the riot act and think that they're evil people. That happens in marriage all the time, too.
I think we've got to start saying compassionately, "my spouse is messed up like I am," and let's cut each other some slack. Maybe we can practice our piety and our godliness in a much more effective way if we are just a little bit more compassionate with our spouse.
Speaker 4
Right?
Speaker 2
You guys have talked about a lot of things that you do and try and do in your marriage, but this doesn't work all the time.
And some couples, marriages, you've talked about a few ways that people could get started.
But what would be the main springboard thing for couples to get going that don't do the things that you guys have described?
Speaker 3
Well, I think the first thing is to have a date night.
Speaker 4
Yep, that's exactly what I was gonna say. Number one thing. I mean, we do it every single week. But even if you did it every other week, I think it should be at least every other week.
Okay, well, I don't. I won't, I won't.
Every week would be amazing. I mean, it really would. It would revolutionize your marriage.
Speaker 3
And the first few might not go well if you don't have them, because it's gonna be a decompression, right? For a few weeks, maybe two, before you finally are like, okay, we're normal people with each other from 5 until 10 o'clock on my date night.
And I know that's hard. People say, I'm busy, I'm busy. You shouldn't be too busy for marriage, right? I mean, think about this.
Speaker 4
You can't marry.
Speaker 3
You walked an aisle. The Bible says, 1 Corinthians 7, your interests are divided. You're going to have to pull something back.
Maybe you can't coach your kids' little league, maybe you can't be in the bowling league, maybe you can't be at every single event that you want to go to, but you're going to have a weeknight or a weekend night or a day.
Speaker 4
Some people have date days.
Speaker 3
Great, great. Have a day, have a time that is a good four or five, six hours even.
Speaker 4
Oh, yikes.
Speaker 3
That would be a lot.
Speaker 4
That's a high hurdle. How about two? Okay. Now this is tricky though, because people with kids and, okay, we don't have grandparents or whatever, it gets really tricky because they think, what can I do? What can I possibly do? And so they opt for the. I'm just gonna have a date with my husband at 9 o'clock at night after the kids go to bed, we'll put some candles on the table and then that's a date.
Okay. I might cut you slack to do that occasionally. But really, a date needs to be you leaving the house without your children. And if that means you do a date swap. I just was talking to someone that I am a good friend with who does this all the time. She swaps babysitting with other people. And it does mean her house is crazier one night a week because she's got three extra kids, but. Or four extra kids, whatever it is.
But they swap so that each other can have date nights. And I even heard this gal was doing a swap weekend where they took each other's kids for the weekend so they could get away with their spouse and that way they didn't have to pay for a babysitter. If you're involved in a church, you have relationships with people that you could make this happen and yeah, it won't be perfect. They won't discipline your kids for you or anything, but your kids will be safe and fine and you'll get away with your husband.
But definitely a date night, even if it's a couple hours a week.
Speaker 3
Well, our focal point listeners better be involved in a church.
Speaker 4
Absolutely.
Speaker 3
You've got to be in a church and you have to have relationships and you have to have those kinds of connections. And you're absolutely right. Share and swap the kinds of services that you need to make this happen.
Speaker 2
Talk about what kind of effect a date night has on a couple in terms of the priority of the relationship and the communication lines that are available. You talked a little bit about that. But what, you know, the importance of that?
Speaker 4
Well, I want to remember that my husband is my husband. I'm not his admin and I'm not his roommate; I'm his wife. And there, you know, there's a whole element to that—not just intimacy, but there's a whole element to that that I'm different than any other relationship he has on the planet.
There are certain things, you know, responsibilities before God even, that I have that can't be fulfilled by anybody else. If I'm not doing what I'm supposed to, then I'm messing up. And, you know, I made that decision just like he made the decision to walk the aisle.
When we did that, we became more than roommates. We became friends and, you know, spouses. I have a responsibility to be a person and fulfill a need in his life that no one else can.
Speaker 3
I think that kind of date night can give you a context to foster the kind of connection that you need. Just in terms, as Carlin said, as friends. Right. Obviously, you're friends before you get married, but you're expressing that friendship in a context.
Of course, it should happen every day. I get that. But there has to be something more than just sitting there and eating dinner or watching TV or doing the things that you do at home, domestically, the context for you to develop a connection as husband and wife.
That, as Carlin says, is not an admin. It's not a job. It's not just buddies. It's more than that. It's something deeper than that.
Speaker 4
Partners.
Speaker 3
Partners. And you're attacking life together and you're doing ministry together and you're trying to go about living for God in a way, as I said last time we were together. Just that you're better together serving the Lord and being who you're supposed to be, than you would be apart. That's how you've got to view this.
And I know everyone's going to say, my wife's not perfect, my husband's not perfect. Well, trust me, we're not trying in any way to set us up as perfect. We're not. Clearly, we're not. We're as fallen as the next person in terms of our frailties in humanity. We know it's not easy to be an imperfect person in an imperfect world married to an imperfect spouse.
And yes, it can be to a greater degree. But all of us know what it is to have that disappointment or the difficulties that you have in marriage and just power through those because you care about doing what God has asked you to do. And that is to be a husband or be a wife.
And that's an important relationship, like Carlin says, the unique ministry to that person that you have that no one else can be. And that's where you take that job seriously.
Speaker 2
That's great, because we certainly had time to date our spouses before we got married.
But now that we're married, we're unable to find that time that should never be.
You know, if you could choose one biblical quality that would be the foundation for a husband and for a wife, what would that be?
Speaker 3
Well, that's a good question. I think we could go in a million directions. But the fear of God. I just think the fear of God is such an important virtue. Obviously, it's forgotten in modern Christianity. No one even has room for that, it seems. But our focal point listeners know there's a place for us to rightly understand what it means to fear the Lord.
To fear the Lord is to realize the kind of responsibility that you have. We've talked a lot about responsibility through our discussions on marriage here. But I'm living with the daughter of God. And God, as the Bible says, his eyes are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. I want to treat his daughter well.
I think the fear of God lets me recognize that I can't get away with kind of treating my wife one way at home and then acting like everything's cool in the lobby of the church. I've got to see with the fear of God that this is my 24-hour-a-day responsibility to do the best I can. As she put it, the unique relationship I have to be a husband to her because I fear the Lord. That, I mean, I don't know, I doubt anyone.
Speaker 4
Wow.
Speaker 3
A lot of people would come up with that, but that's what I thought of.
Speaker 4
I love that.
Speaker 3
Oh, that's good.
Speaker 4
Wow.
Speaker 3
What was yours?
Speaker 4
Mine was to encourage. Mine was to be an encourager and a cheerleader. That's great.
Speaker 3
You just encouraged me for picking the fear of God as mine.
Speaker 1
No.
Speaker 4
Wow, that was so awesome. But first, Thessalonians 5:11 says, "Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing." I like that because it implies that they're actually already encouraging, and he just wants them to keep doing it.
I think it's so important for wives to be their husband's best cheerleader. Having a smile on her face, expressing gratitude with a specific, "Thank you for doing this," and creating moments of connection—like squeezing their arm and smiling at them—can make a big difference.
When you see him do something with the kids, something at work, or something in ministry, it's important to acknowledge it. Saying, "You did a good job," or "That was great, you did this," can really spur them on. Being very intentional about what you say is crucial in encouraging them. So that's what I think is important.
Speaker 3
Some women would listen to that and go, well, you know, I don't feel any of that. They bear such grudges against their husband. And I would say you're really helping yourself by taking on that advice and that biblical exhortation toward your husband.
Because when your husband has that kind of support and encouragement, he wants to live up to that. It may not be the first day because you got, you say, I don't, I don't know if I want to encourage my husband with anything because there's nothing encourageable. You know, there's nothing that I would want to encourage him in because he's a bad guy or whatever.
I'm just saying if you took on that mindset, guys are going to be motivated, I think, in that regard. And it certainly spurs me on. And I think it's a good, good thing, obviously, that everybody can do, not just wives, but husbands toward themselves.
Speaker 4
Well, encourage someone means to instill them with courage, to push them into courage and boldness.
Speaker 3
And we need to be encouraging each other. Husbands to wives and wives to husbands.
Speaker 2
Those are great. That can be transformational in a marriage if they just started doing those things. Definitely, yes.
Well, thank you, Pastor Mike and Carlin. I appreciate your time. I trust this is going to be an encouragement to husbands and to wives to help their marriages in glorifying God.
Remember, if you have a question for Ask Pastor Mike, you can go to our website, focalpointradio.org and submit it on the Ask Pastor Mike page.
Back to you, Dave.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Jay. You're listening to Pastor Mike and Carlin Febares with practical tips on marriage. You can start up today. Now to listen again, go online to focalpointradio.org and look for the Ask Pastor Mike interview titled Tools for a Godly Marriage.
Well, you heard it. The first step is to schedule that date night right now, put it on the calendar, and have a meaningful, intentional, grace-filled, heart-to-heart chat to appreciate the love of your life and start helping them become who God created them to be. Now, most of us could use a refresher on how to do this better, especially if bad habits have crept in over time. How exactly do you bring up a touchy subject without temperatures rising?
Well, to help you, we're featuring a great book this month. It's by R.C. Sproul and it's called The Intimate Marriage. You heard Pastor Mike and Carlin give you tips on how they sustain a godly marriage today. Imagine having the same kind of advice in book form from the heart of a legendary shepherd like R.C. Sproul, who had more than 50 years of marriage under his belt. One of my favorite sections debunks the myths that many couples believe about married life, replacing them with witness, humor, and truth from Scripture and real life.
This is a book you're going to enjoy, and it's yours for a gift to focalpointradio.org or give by calling 888-320-5885. As a faithful Focal Point listener, we're here to fortify and equip you and to partner with you in every way as you shore up your unique ministry to your life partner. We're dedicated to exploring and proclaiming the depths of Scripture with you, and as you give a generous donation today, you're helping men and women across the country be imitators of Christ in their marriage and beyond.
Give today by calling 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org. Well, do you have a two-headed dragon in your home? I'm Dave Drouy inviting you back after the weekend when Pastor Mike Fabarez returns Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.
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