32. Q&A

Well , if the question is something that we think a lot of people would benefit from , we've got a good list of questions , so we'll see how many we can get through and maybe you will recognize your question in the mix . Maybe you are the lucky winner .

The question was is a masturbation habit the same as a porn problem ? With regards to how cautious you should be inside of a dating relationship with somebody that has a masturbation habit , how would you answer that babe ?

Like looking at porn you are , I mean , you're sending , you're looking at somebody else naked , all that stuff . So there's just a different level of whatever it feels like you're cheating on Violation .

And so the Bible is not super clear on is masturbation a sin ? And we know that masturbation with lust is a sin , for sure , but masturbation just in and of itself , the Bible doesn't go . Hey , that's a sin . Now , there's lots of reasons why not to do it , and I don't even know that we need to go so far down that road .

But anything that you can't control , that you can't stop that you do to to medicate is obviously something that you want to stop and take a look at . And so what I would do if I was in a dating relationship with someone who was struggling fairly consistent with masturbation is , again , hey , I care for you , I want our relationship to go somewhere .

I really want you to get this figured out before we make , you know , more long term , longer lasting decisions , because I don't want you to be addicted to food , I don't want you to be addicted to shopping . Yeah , Anything like that .

So if you're in a dating relationship , that's where you should be having all of your hard conversations and masturbation is just another one of those , and so that I mean honestly , that's what . Those are the conversations that I would be having .

If you feel out of control of anything , you don't trust yourself in that area , and so it's hard to build a trust filled foundation in a dating relationship If you have anything going on where you know you're not in control .

Next question so one of our other most recent episodes was an interview with our good friend , dr Margaret Nagib , and we discussed gender differences and how real biological brain chemistry differences between men and women play out in relationships , and we talked about , uh , in that interview we talked about how kind of that classic scenario of like the wife is um ,

you know she's at home , okay , thank you . Hey , she's in her kind of more masculine mode , in task mode , getting things done , working hard to make sure things are taken care of .

Maybe in that masculine mode , maybe they don't have the best teamwork climate and she is taking on the brunt of some of that and then gets a little bit bossy with her husband about what he should or shouldn't be doing .

But then she has this awesome revelation that she should actually be operating more in her feminine and she should stop emasculating her husband . Um , but the question is , there's still real needs that the house has or that our family has . There's things that actually really need to get done .

So the question being , how do I as a woman actually balance being in my feminine , my sweet spot , and not emasculating my husband , but actually figuring out how do we get this stuff done If he's not going to initiate and pick up and actually pick up these tasks and get stuff done , what are we supposed to do ? I can't just sit back .

So you really first have to check your own frustration to make sure that you're not just coming to punish , because I think that that's the most common thing is that I even see memes on a lot on Instagram or reels where the the wife is actually someone yesterday where her husband is sitting down and she says , hey , can you take out the garbage ?

And he says , yeah , I'll do it in a minute . And then she just walks over there and starts taking out the garbage but she's doing . she's like slamming the garbage up and down , up and down , she's doing as loud as she can , right , yeah . And that's an attempt to punish , that's an attempt to to make him feel emasculated , you know ?

Or what shame or whatever she's letting you know . I don't approve of you .

He was just trying to get down a little bit delayed , and I was thinking , man , I'm going to clean up in the kitchen , I'm going to do some stuff here and I'm going to put away these things . And when I came back out , you had , you know , I , oh I thought that I had everything done and I went to the bathroom or whatever .

And I came back out and you had said the most inviting thing . You said , um , I won't get it perfectly . Do you remember exactly ?

So I said hey , babe , thanks so much for taking the time to clean the kitchen . That felt amazing . You know what we could do to take it to the next level . You could wash the food down the sink .

And in the past that would have that could have been a frustrating message from you to me and I don't want to do it anymore . I'm like , okay , I forget two things . And you're frustrated with me . Yeah , so it's how you say it .

And if you , if you are taking over and doing everything you know for your husband , you're taking out the garbage and you're taking out the recycling and you're cleaning up after the kids and you're doing all that stuff , then the and you're like , okay , I'm not going to , I'm not just going to take everything on .

Then the message is hey , you know , what would help me so much is if I could , if I knew that you were going to conquer and divide with me at night . I would feel so cared for and partnered with .

It's an imitation for the man I would feel so cared for and partnered with If you could tackle the whatever , the recycling every day and the trash , and I could tackle the , whatever your thing is , the cooking , the kitchen , the cleaning , and then when he forgets cause he's going to cause . You're not perfect either .

The message is hey , baby , I know that you're super busy , do you think that you could partner with me today and just take out the recycling ? And when he does it , it's hey , thanks so much . It means a lot . It's that message that you're sending him , that I'm inviting you in , so nobody wants to . If you're going to do it , so nobody wants to .

If you're already mad at me and you're already going to be mad at me , then I don't really we even want to partner with you . But if you can continue to send the message I love you , I care for you , I want to be partners , it's really inviting .

The other thing that I'll say is , before you ever start suggesting stuff with him too , I think that you can have a conversation which says hey , I want to build a better partnership in our marriage so that we feel closer , more connected .

And one of the ways that would , I think , would really help me , is if we could conquer and divide some of the tasks around the house . Typically , women send that message in such a demeaning , shame filled way that it makes the man just go like you're already , like you're the problem , because you're already angry .

It doesn't matter what I do , you're just angry at life . And if you can flip that around , it's true .

But it doesn't really like it's basically was saying I'm not doing the mean justice but it's basically saying it's a , it's a lose , lose . It doesn't really matter , because my wife's already pissed off all the time .

So to me it's all about inviting , it's all about setting it up correctly and then let your messages back to him Be really inviting . I think about this stuff and I don't do a perfect job . I don't do a perfect job taking out the recycling every single time . I don't do a perfect job taking out the garbage every time .

I don't do a perfect job on the sink . But here's the thing I still deserve respect and I still deserve to be talked to kindly , and there's no woman that's going to do her job perfectly every time .

And so , whatever however you want to be treated , that's how you treat somebody else , regardless of what they've done , and if you keep that standard , you'll bring a really inviting environment inside of your relationship and it will feel fun to partner with you , not like it's such a drag .

Actually , I had somebody write it and say I feel like people at your church have you know a definition for what is a soul tie ? I don't think people really know what that is . What is it ? How do I break it ? How do I know if I have one ? So let's talk about soul ties for a minute .

And basically the the best picture of that is if you take two boards and you glue them together with wood glue , those two boards are never , ever going to be singular again , ever .

And if you were to rip those boards apart , right , what would be left is and if you've done this before , if you worked with wood , you've had to you've glued two boards together on accident and you're like , oh , shoot , and you rip them apart and they're splinters .

There's pieces of one board left on the other and pieces of the other board left on the other . They're , they're no longer ever singular again . And the Bible , like God , designed the Bible to be one . Like God designed that we would live inside a covenant . He designed that that we would be two individuals that are united and knit together .

And so a soul tie is created a couple of different ways . It's created through shared experiences , through the exchange of deep emotions , through covenant ties , and so you can create , like Jonathan and David had , a soul tie . It wasn't a sexual soul tie , but it said .

David said that he loved Jonathan more than he had loved another woman , and it wasn't a sexual thing . It was this bond that they had forged and created through war , through shared experiences , through through doing life together , and for them you know that that was a helpful , healthy thing .

When you're married , when you have a soul tie , a sexual intercourse creates a soul tie with other people , and so that's part of the challenge is , if you've slept with a lot of different people , well , you have pieces that belong to somebody else .

I mean you get their baggage spiritually , and so to break a soul tie , super simple , like you don't have to make it more complicated than it is .

Like sometimes you have to set up boundaries because you've created unhealthy soul ties , like if you had an affair for a long time , you've created really unhealthy soul ties with somebody that needs to be broken , and if you don't break those , then you feel like a divided person because you have two husbands or two wives , because you have a soul tie with your

wife and this other woman that you're sleeping with , or whatever , and it literally creates so much confusion you can't tell right side , yeah from from downside . So you know going through and breaking the soul tie , which to me has been really simple . I've walked lots of people through it . It's a repentance process , so the words aren't .

You don't have to get the words perfect , but basically it's Lord , what I have taken from this other person would you give back to them and what I , what I have given to them , would you bring back to me ? And then it's the Lord would you break the soul tie that was created ? On how to break the soul tie that was created unhealthy , through them ?

And again , I don't know that it's any of the magic words , even when we accept Christ and they're like God , will you come into my life ? It's not the fact that you said it in English or Spanish , or it's the heart behind it . And so it's a process of repentance .

I think a lot of people experience the negative effects of soul ties outside of marriage . Even like , let's say , you , you were in a dating relationship and you know you didn't . That dating relationship didn't end in marriage but , for whatever reason , you break it off with this other person and you don't know why , but you just can't get over them .

You just cannot . You were cycling through grief . You feel like you've lost part of yourself in the process . You're not sure how to move forward . Those are , those would be indicators that you've got some deep bond attachments to that other person because of the depth of emotional connection you went to .

Maybe the depth of physical connection that you went to , maybe the shared experiences , whatever it was , the exchange of life that you had with this other person , was this bonding experience that's really keeping you in bondage . It's keeping you from moving forward . Those would be great indicators that , okay , you know what .

I'm actually going to have some time with God . I'm going to actually pray through this a little bit . I'm going to release this person from you know , in a spiritual sense , I'm going to release this person from my grip and I'm gonna ask the Holy Spirit to restore to me whatever I shouldn't have given away . Yeah , that would be kind of the process .

Right oh yeah , as a married couple , it's incredible .

Maybe a child , you know , maybe a small , for sure , a small baby when they're getting bigger . But once people are capable and competent , you , you no longer can work harder on their problem or you'll become , you know , an enabler , and so I Will . I'll just like maybe I can just talk around this for a minute to her .

You don't fully know yet if you want him back , because you don't want somebody back that doesn't want to be back . Right and you don't want somebody back that that is divided , that I mean . We just talked about the unhealthy soul tie right .

Yeah and that you're constantly having to convince , sneak around , go through his stuff , not believe him , like that's what happens when , when you try to keep somebody in a relationship that they won't be in is there's so much mistrust . It's just hell .

And so I would say what you , if you were my sister , what I'd be telling you to do right now is to To just make sure that you're well and don't chase them down . So part of what happens when , when a man goes and chases another woman and the wife goes and chases him down , it's really unappealing .

So it's because it puts him in a spot where he feels powerful I've got this woman and I've got my wife that it's like I've got a lot of options here . There's a lot of things that I could be doing right now and it makes him feels super powerful and really desired and and I'm not saying play a bunch of games , but it's like , well , don't go , do that .

It's not , it's that's the wrong move to make . If your husband's cheating on you , the right thing to do is to go like , hey , you need to go figure out your stuff . Like you got to go figure out your life and I don't know if you're gonna be back .

I don't know if our marriage is salvageable Like those are the times when a guy comes to himself , when a man comes to himself and goes holy crap , I'm probably gonna lose my whole life over this and has a real revelation of what his actions are costing him .

Those are the times when I've seen marriages actually turn around is no , I've never , had never seen it when a woman Honestly , when a woman- begs him back or even a man . When a man begs a woman back . I've never seen that work . I've always seen it work . When it's worked , it's been because the husband or wife has went .

Hey , listen , it's painful , it is . I don't want to do life with somebody that's broken , with somebody who's gonna go chase somebody else Like you go figure out your stuff , I'm gonna go work on me and you know you're gonna have like I don't know . So to me that's a lot of the advice that I help , that I give people .

So I would say to this person because you know she's saying he's filing for a divorce , he's already made his decision .

I would say , probably at this point , the best thing , the most beneficial thing that you could do , would be to express your heartbreak that this isn't at all what you wanted for your family and that it's making for a devastating story for you and for the kids , but that you are going to do whatever you need to do , as in like the wife , like telling your

husband hey , listen , I can't control you . I'm about to go and do everything I could possibly do to get completely whole and well , and I'm sure I will figure out my part . That played out in our marriage . I'm gonna go and work that out . My dream would be that you would go and work that out too , because I would love to see our family restored .

This isn't the story that I wanted , but you're right , we can't be married if you're actually gonna be married to another woman .

And , of course , for you , you're thinking if my marriage was restored , if my husband came back whole , you know that is the only way this is gonna be a happy ending . And I think I'm saying well , you can't control that outcome and do we believe that God's good to take care of us , even when we can't control other people ? Yeah , so you just never know .

You never know what God's gonna do .

And I remember walking on the river trail for just a week , every single morning , like six am because I couldn't sleep and I just began to ask God , like you have to take this anxiety away , this fear . And I remember one moment , literally God encountered me on the river trail and I had to , like I took one more step .

I was praying that prayer and all the anxiety left , all of it , the fear that I wasn't gonna be okay , the fear that my kids were gonna be okay , the fear that all the fear left . The pain was still there , but I had zero fear and I went through that entire season the divorce , everything with no fear , literally no fear .

And so to me , like man , that's what I'm believing for this woman is that God will come and take all the fear away , because then you can make really good decisions .

It feels at times like rejection , and how do you walk through a situation like that , or a heartbreak , maybe a relationship has ended , that you really how do you not internalize that as a rejection ?

But you go to a whole another level when you make it a self-worth issue Right , and so if you can just keep it about how I really have this deep desire to have a relationship and when it doesn't work out , that feels sad , that's just human emotions , Right , that's normal and that's okay . And processing that .

As soon as you get into what's wrong with me why , why doesn't someone want to choose me ? Now you're getting into a worth issue , a self-worth issue , and that's where you're gonna get taken to the cleaners .

And so to me , it's like you really have to solidify your self-worth so that every time you go through a breakup or whatever it doesn't work out how you want it to you don't go back and question your own worth and your identity and who you are as a person , how valuable you are , Because as long as you're questioning how valuable you are as a person , then

you're gonna have a really hard time going into , you know , dating relationships , because your worth is based upon somebody else's want .

It's really normal to feel disappointed . It's really normal to be bummed and to have a moment of disappointment where wow , this didn't work out and to cry about that , and it's really normal to go . Is there something that I'm doing that I need to look at and need to change ? That's not a bad thing . What's wrong with me as a human being ?

That's where you're gonna get messed up . So you know , John Other's has a book called Fathered by God for men . I love for them to read that book . Even a woman could read that book , because it's all about getting healthy identity back right . It's all about knowing that God is for you , he loves you , restoring that connection .

And so we want God to be back in our God spot and we wanna feel worthy of love and worthy of appreciation and worthy of good things . So that maybe I'm looking at okay , is there some things that I'm doing to reject people or to cause them to run away ? That's different than I don't feel worthy of a healthy relationship .

Over probably the course of like five or six years , I dated three different guys who it was like one after the other . It was so interesting . I was in these relationships , each one . I felt like I could see a future for myself with this person . I was deeply invested .

I knew that they really liked me a lot and the relationship , each relationship , ended basically by the guy telling me I'm sorry , you're amazing , I just can't commit to you . And after the first time it was like a bummer . The second time I was like wait a second , that's what the last guy said .

By the third time I was like what in the actual world , are you joking me ? And it wasn't really . It didn't get fully into a self-worth issue for me , it was just a moment of confusion . But what I felt was the Lord , bring a lot of clarity to me and I felt like I was supposed to walk away from those situations going .

Not that keeps happening to me , but God is doing this for me , and I just think that , as women , we would do ourselves a favor by realizing that , when an opportunity that we really want doesn't actually materialize for us , I think it's often because God is protecting us , or he knows the best thing for us , or there actually is a better plan for us .

So this is part of where people learning how to process pain We've done a whole podcast on processing pain where you go through and actually process the pain thoroughly so that you can answer the questions that are really in your heart is so important , so that when you get into another relationship , you're not afraid if it doesn't work out .

You may be sad if it doesn't , but you don't have this foreboding , this underlying doom and gloom waiting to happen , because that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and you end up causing the thing that you're afraid of .

And so , going back , go back and find the Working Through Pain podcast that we did and really make sure that you're going through the steps of processing the pain well so that you come back out fully , whole and ready to go again .

So this one is about sex and marriage and I think it dovetails nicely with the gender differences topic and then also probably the episode that we did on sex and marriage . We did two part series on that .

This question comes on the heels of it , but basically it's saying knowing the differences between men and women and how we're wired differently as a wife , how do you meet your husband's needs and sex and help him ?

You don't want your husband going off to porn or going off to fantasizing about other women Like you wanna be the one who's meeting the very valid needs that he has . But how do you do that ? Without it being from a place of guilt ? She's saying I feel guilty when I say no , but that's not a great reason to do something .

And so , for you , you're gonna have to have some really honest conversation with him which is gonna be like hey , I really love you , I believe in you , I care for you .

I don't wanna feel the responsibility of managing this addiction or this porn problem in your life because as soon as I get into that spot , I'm no longer your wife that is free to have real needs or not . Now I'm doing this because I'm afraid of you .

There's actually fear , there's mistrust , there's a lack of confidence , and that's gonna be more devastating on your relationship than a lot of things . So , putting the ownership back on him , you can partner with him in other ways besides having to have sex with him .

So that's the other side of the coin is you can encourage him , you can speak life into him , like when a woman believes in her man . There's nothing that motivates me more , that makes me feel more empowered , than when Lauren says I believe in you , you can do this .

Like yeah , I can't even explain it Like when a woman partners with a man and says I'm praying for you , I believe in you , I love you , I know you can do this , I'm here for you . That's way better than come and have sex with me anytime you're feeling low or down . You just want . He won't solve the problem .

So what's gonna keep him from going and doing all of this ?

So we can't blame our husband for the fear or the guilt that we feel . I think what we can do is go okay , where is the fear coming from and where is the guilt ? I feel guilty if I say no to having sex because I feel like I'm afraid that if I say no , he's going to have to go and find some other outlet to get his sexual needs met .

Well , you can't actually control what he does , but way before that's the problem . I would say the problem is okay . So you aren't loving your sex life , you're not loving your intimate connection with your spouse . If you were , you wouldn't spend so much time feeling guilty for saying no . So I think , probably figuring out the fear and the guilt for you .

Where is that coming from ? What's actually going on that's inhibiting you from enjoying your intimate connection with your husband ? Why isn't it something that you want to do ? Is the fear coming from a past experience or is it coming from just what you're imagining could happen .

But the frequency depends because you don't always feel like having sex with me . It's just not . Your libido's not as high as mine and you don't have that same drive as I have .

And so to me it's like if you have a normal sex life , which is , I think on average it's two times a week that couples are having intercourse , and you're feeling guilty for having a need for going , like wow , I'm really tired tonight , or and you're constantly turning him down , and to me it's like what do you guys need to do in your marriage to feel more

connected To , and what does he need to tweak to invite you in to that time ? Maybe it's , maybe you don't have a great emotional connection and so you know you're not coming to the place where you are physically wanting to connect with him because you're not emotionally connected to him , which is how most women work , the majority of women .

So it'd be like , okay , let's tweak that , let's work on that If it just doesn't matter . And you're just feeling guilty overall . Any time you could have had sex three times that week and you're feeling guilty for saying no . Then you got to go back to like , where did you learn that having needs isn't okay ?

So if you're afraid of being abandoned , if you're afraid that he's going to neglect you , if you're afraid that he's not going to be able to take care of himself , you're going to want to really address that , because you have this core belief that you can keep him on track , that you can , that if you can just control him , that he's going to be okay .

But ultimately , what you're really trying to do is make sure that you're okay . Yes it seems like you're trying to make him and I just did a real on this yesterday Like it feels really loving and caring because it's like I'm laying down my life for this person .

I'm doing , I'm doing things I don't want to do , but the truth is , most often we are just afraid that we're going to get hurt and it's isn't actually really love and care , it's fear .

And so go back to addressing your own fear of whatever abandonment , rejection , yes , being out of control , so that you quit betraying yourself , you quit giving yourself away when you don't really actually want to give yourself away . That's , that's coming . That was there before your marriage ever happened .

Absolutely and it's just , you know , maybe go to a counseling appointment for that or something , where you're , you're , you're checking in on that fear that you have of you got to control everything in order for you to be okay .

We've been growing over the past I don't know how many months we've been doing this six months or so and it's just so fun to see you guys interaction . Also , if you have a question or a tip or have a topic you want us to talk about , feel free to send us that and we love those . So , guys , thank you so much . We love you . Have an incredible week .

We will see you next week .