The VowsToKeep Marriage Podcast

Seeing Your Spouse's Unspoken Needs :: [Ep. 275]

• David & Tracy Sellars • Episode 275

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Seeing Your Spouse's Unspoken Needs :: [Ep. 275]

This week, we are wrapping up our six-part series on Powerful Pursuit by exploring how to see and meet your spouse's unspoken heart-level needs, moving beyond being roommates to truly pursuing one another in marriage.

We will cover the following in this episode:

• Distinguishing between what your spouse wants versus what they truly need at heart level
• Understanding marriage as an opportunity to prioritize pursuit like the shepherd who leaves his 99 sheep
• Warning against responding with judgment rather than Christ-like pursuit when hurt enters a relationship
• The importance of discernment in identifying what our spouse actually needs
• Making it your mission to understand your spouse so well they don't have to articulate their needs

Come listen and be encouraged and helped! 


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. The mission of Vows to Keep is to help couples develop a biblically healthy marriage through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. They desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

Speaker 2:

We are David and Tracy Sellers and, like you, we've made vows to keep.

Speaker 3:

And we are rounding out a six-week series today Powerful Pursuit why Pursuit Matters in your Marriage and how to Practically Carry it Out. We started this entire series with the realization that in our house we talk too much about the details of the day and not really enough about what actually matters. So if you're ready to stop being roommates like we are and to get back to being in love, we're glad you're here.

Speaker 2:

Our second broadcast in this series was how we transition from being someone who just observes our spouse to someone who's actually a champion of the cause that God has put you in front of in their lives. The third broadcast was really asking us the question what actually are we pursuing? What's the paradise that we're pursuing? Because so often we are focused on the wrong things and then what we realize is after we've gotten married gosh, I married a sinner, which shouldn't come as a big shock. But when we get to the end of that fairy tale, we begin to realize that we have been pursuing something this side of heaven and it's actually been a great distraction from our greater purpose.

Speaker 3:

In the fourth part of this Powerful Pursuit series we talked about how, if we're pursuing God's kingdom as a couple, then really we should be striving to be each other's closest friend. Because, if you boil friendship down to the basics, friendship is discipleship and God has graciously given us each other to play that key role in each other's lives.

Speaker 2:

In the fifth part of this series, we touched on a topic which is very near and dear to my heart, and it is the balance of those things that are urgent in our lives with those things that are important in our lives your marriage. Is this contest really a battle between those things that are urgent and important? And we have to ask ourselves periodically who or what is winning right now, because God's word is there to help us reevaluate our priorities so that our marriage and our mission is one that God can be glorified through. And today we end this series on powerful pursuit with a focus on seeing your spouse's needs, and especially the unspoken needs.

Speaker 3:

I wonder how often we struggle with generously meeting their needs versus just sort of giving them what they want, just to sort of make them be quiet.

Speaker 2:

Aren't they the same thing?

Speaker 3:

Not exactly, because one is aiming for the heart and the other one is aimed at just pleasing them emotionally. If your spouse right now had 20 seconds to answer the question, hey, what do you need, babe? They might list some really practical things that might just be Got my pen ready.

Speaker 3:

Yep, exactly what do you need? You need some slug bug parts, don't you? Okay, and it'd be nice if some of those things were just sort of ticked off the list, if we could help with that. But the real question is, what do they really need? To have you grab dinner on the way home, or maybe help them with a project? Probably not.

Speaker 3:

Their real needs are always at the heart level. His need might be to grow as a spiritual leader. Her need might be to understand God's will for her life, or to live in peace because of the cross. Your family's need might be to be respectful to one another, because that might be missing in your house right now, like it might be in our house with our kids a little bit. Giving someone what they want means pleasing them temporarily. Meeting their deepest need is something that in five or 10 years from now is still going to have lasting effects.

Speaker 3:

If we're the one in need, just getting what I want seems like the most urgent thing to us. We all have that in our lives. Let me give you an example. We were downtown Columbus at a baseball game with our kids many, many years ago, and to get to our car, of course, it was parked really far away. We had to walk a long distance, and so does everybody else. So there's these streams of people crowding the sidewalks, but it wasn't just baseball fans that night. There was a homeless guy who was sitting.

Speaker 2:

I remember this.

Speaker 3:

And he was just watching thousands of people walk past him. I wonder what he thought of everybody who pretended like he wasn't there. I wonder how many times he had waited for a ball game to happen so he could ask for money, so he could ask for help, for someone in the crowd to notice him and his need.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was actually one of those people that wanted to put my tunnel vision on and walk right past this guy. But my oldest daughter. She saw this guy from about 20 feet off and she stopped our family and said Dad, dad, I've got $5 here in my pocket. That's, that was her own money. She had earned it from working and she wanted to give it to him. And she was asking can I do that?

Speaker 3:

David and I exchanged glances. It's getting dark outside, we don't know this guy, but we said yeah, go ahead and do what you feel like you should do. So later that night. What this led to is we got to have some pretty neat discussions about generosity and meeting someone's needs. Did she touch that guy's heart that day, or did she just meet a temporary need? I don't know, but she could have spent that money on something else. She saw a need, though, and she took action.

Speaker 2:

Now, our daughter and her generous innocence really taught us a big lesson that night, because I think in some ways it's easier to roll down my window at a stoplight and hand some total, stranger a $20 bill than to give generously and actually trust God to use me in the process, whether it's touching that person on the side of the street, but especially trusting that he would use me to touch the heart of my spouse.

Speaker 3:

I think sometimes we shy away from that a little bit. We sort of duck for cover when it comes to seeing what our spouse really needs, letting them maybe even unload their day on us and we are an engaged listener. We'd rather spend some energy over here doing something that meets an immediate need.

Speaker 2:

In this close quarters relationship that marriage is, I think it's easy to choose to ignore what your spouse is really dealing with at the heart level than having to engage and actually deal with it ourselves. So where is your husband at right now? Where is your wife right now? Is she maybe next to you? Is she at her desk at work? Is your husband commuting right now or showering, watching a video on his iPad? Wherever they are, what purpose is there in what they're doing and how might that relate to a need that they might have from you?

Speaker 3:

It's not something we think about all hours of the day. So, as we wrap up the six-part series on powerful pursuit, we're going to talk about pursuit through giving and serving and pursuing your spouse, because you're actually anticipating their needs, you're thinking about them ahead of time, you're being so in tune with what they need that they don't have to beg or coerce or threaten to get it from you and, on the other side of that, they aren't faced with the temptation to look outside of your marriage to fulfill that desire. In fact, we want to make it our goal to foresee our spouse's needs so well that they don't even have to think about it themselves, because you've got them covered with God's help and with God's power. And it's so neat because when you do that, when you act like that on a consistent basis, they know you've got their back and they're going to be able to rest in the security of your pursuit.

Speaker 2:

I can already tell there's someone who's saying wait a second, tracy, you don't know, my spouse, if I give to them, they're going to take, and then they'll take, and then they'll take, and then they'll take some more. And it's kind of like this homeless man that my daughter gave her hard-earned money to. It really wasn't up to her to tell the guy how to spend it. He could have thrown it away on liquor or bought food. Who knows what he did with it? Her job, per the Bible, was to love, and she did that. That's your job too, and that's what today's broadcast is really focused on.

Speaker 3:

If you have your Bibles and you're able to turn to 1 John, chapter 3, we're going to read verse 17. If anyone has the world's goods and it could be a $5 bill in your pocket or it could be something that your spouse needs right now and if you see your brother, your sister, your spouse in need and you close up your heart against them. One version says if you show no compassion, how does God's love abide in you?

Speaker 2:

What we're saying is your spouse is the equivalent of the beggar on the sidewalk. They're looking to see. Will you stop and actually see their real need? Will you love them enough to do something about it? Now, this isn't a pass or fail test once in your life. It's a calling that we have as a spouse inside of a God-honoring marriage. Anticipating your spouse's needs is more than just a knowledge that there is a need. Our pursuit has got to be in emulating Christ in their life, and it's a response to what he's done for us that we play out daily in their lives. Now I have to tell you this is playing out week in and week out in a friend's life. We'll call him Joe.

Speaker 2:

Several months ago, he became aware of some sin in his wife's life. Turns out, she had a wayward eye for another man, and that was a hunch that he had had for a few months, and he really didn't do anything about it. In fact, all he did was harbor some bitterness in his heart and, as it turned out, there was this relationship and it was threatening their marriage, but it was not physical, it was emotional. Now, he didn't do anything about it until the point in time in which it was confirmed. So what would your reaction be? Well, joe's was sinful anger. I want to share with you what Jesus says in Luke 15, 3.

Speaker 3:

So, leading up to Luke 15, 3, let me set the scene for you just a little bit. Here Jesus is talking with some people that were a little bit against him, some Pharisees that were asking him why are you hanging out with these sinners? They were trying to catch him in something wrong so that they could persecute him. And here's his answer. He says suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? You can kind of hear him say of course he does. And when he finds it he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and he goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way, there'll be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who don't need to repent.

Speaker 2:

So Jesus is compelling you and I and Joe to a very different reaction, one that, at the first sight of trouble, is going to leave the other 99 distractions, the other 99 pursuits, and they're going to go after. They're going to go after their spouse. For Joe, the anger caused him to completely miss the point. The very point he thought he was making was in fact, the wrong point, because Joe was pursuing justice on his terms. The cost was very high. His own sin of anger took a separation that she started and made it massively wider. And what Jesus is teaching about in this passage is that pursuit is a start to recovery. That's why there's this great celebration when the sheep returns. But instead, what Joe ignored became a situation with explosive results.

Speaker 2:

Joe had the same reaction as the Pharisees who were listening to Jesus tell this parable about the sheep. Jesus says hey, you got to be people of pursuit. We need to be a good evaluator of how to apply the Bible in that pursuit, but our job is not to be the judge and the jury. God, what are you asking me to provide in my spouse's life? Not judging, not condemning. What's the natural reaction? Maybe you even want me to withhold, because if Joe would have chosen to give love rather than show wrath, the picture would have been very different. If he would have chosen to give love rather than show wrath, the picture would have been very different. If he would have chosen to be a professional giver, would she have become a professional taker? That's the question I think we wrestle with, and the answer is hey, you are married to a sinner, so it's a fair question, but actually one that we don't have to answer.

Speaker 3:

So let me pose this question If I asked you to make a list of what you need in life maybe what you want in life how long would it be? If I gave you just a general notebook and a blue pen and you numbered it one to a hundred, could you fill that in pretty quick.

Speaker 2:

With ease.

Speaker 3:

I definitely could. Now let me ask you this Could you do the same thing for your spouse? Could you fill in that list just as quickly? Or maybe you don't really know them well enough, and it might be only five long, not a hundred. When we look at our own list of our hundred needs and wants, I think we can rationalize every single one of them. I want my diet Mountain Dew because I rationalize that I need the caffeine to get my day started. I want a vacation because I rationalize that when I get back I'm going to be a better wife and a better mom and a better employee. When we look at our spouse's needs and wants, though, do we rationalize them as well, or I think, most often than not, we dismiss them as trivial or absurd or not worth meeting that need.

Speaker 2:

And there are consequences to putting your needs above your spouse's needs. James 4.17 says this if anyone then knows the good they ought to do and they don't do it, it's sin for them. So if, in my pride, I easily dismiss the needs that are placed before me and my spouse's life, guess what? I've been the very person that James 4.17 is talking about. It's as if I'm saying to God hey, you know what, god, I'm on a bigger and better mission than just my spouse. And that pride, that sin, actually separates me from God. We can find this in James 4.6. It actually makes God at times oppose us, which is a scary thought.

Speaker 2:

When God looks at your spouse, what kind of list does he make for her needs? And does that list that you just thought of, about the things that you think of, does that look the same as God's list? Because for many of us it wouldn't. I don't think it would for me without some real prayer and examination. God did not wait for us to beg and plead and whine for him to come. He didn't wait to come until he thought okay, you know what, you're good enough, I guess I'll come. He didn't come because we didn't think to deserve it either, because if Christ would have waited, we'd still be waiting for our biggest need ever to be met. But he didn't wait, and at just the right time. Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

Speaker 3:

So I think, as we discover all these truths today, we have to ask how do we know what our spouse really needs? Now that we've got some motivation behind that, Well, the word that comes to my mind, David, is discern. Discernment, Because if I evaluate you by my perceptions and that could be from my own history, my own background, my own way of thinking I'm not going to be correct, maybe even 5% of the time. Because I'm not going to be correct, maybe even 5% of the time, because I'm just going to be watching from the outside and I might be making some bad evaluation. And this is where I think a lot of wives with good intentions give their husbands actually something they probably don't need, and it might step on your toes a little bit by saying this, but they don't need you to be their mom Now.

Speaker 3:

It feels like a quick fix to manage them like that. You might see a gap in their life and you want to fill that in. But here's the thing You're not the master in their life. You work for the master in their life, Jesus Christ. You're there to be their helpmate, to serve, to point them to Christ, and typically that does not come through demands or commands.

Speaker 3:

Now here's the other side of that. If we should not be in evaluation and judgment of our spouse, how do we know what they really need? I think it goes back to being spirit-led, discerning where God wants us to meet their need, praying about it, like you said David, spending time thinking it over, even talking it over with your spouse, so we can be generous in all the right ways. It's interesting how, when we're discerning in the little things, it actually can add up to be discerning in the big things. Let me give you an example from our house. So David and I have both fallen asleep and you know the kind where you're not quite comfortable for the night yet and you're kind of half asleep and then you wake up and realize, oh, I should actually really go to bed right now.

Speaker 2:

This happens to us every night, doesn't it?

Speaker 3:

Like all the time. So I was all nice and snug and of course I didn't want to get up. But David, next to me, he's tossing and turning and in my sleepiness I'm like, hey, are you okay? And he's like I'm so cold, I just if I could get warm, then I could, I could get comfortable enough to go to bed. So I knew that another blanket was laying on the floor next to his side of the bed and I knew that would do the trick. But guess what? I didn't want to get up and go get it for him. So I laid there, david, with like my eyes closed and had this 30 second argument with myself Am I actually going to get up and get it for him?

Speaker 2:

Meanwhile, I'm just totally naive there, I think.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, still tossing and turning. So then I thought of this broadcast that we were writing and all the truths of scripture that were so fresh on my mind, and I thought this is what it means, right here at 11 o'clock at night, to lay down my life like Jesus did. This is what it means to put my needs aside and to consider David as more important than myself. So I got up out of bed and I covered David up.

Speaker 2:

Sweet success right and it felt good.

Speaker 3:

Well, sweet success, depending on what I do with my mouth after the fact, not letting him know how much I did not want to get out of my cozy bed, or letting him know with maybe some big sign or this begrudging way like here if you could just have this blanket, then I could finally just go to bed and he's going to know how much that costs me and it's not going to be a blessing for him or for me. And then later on not patting myself on the back like, hey, did you see what I did there? Aren't I pretty awesome? But in this situation I did keep my mouth shut. He said thank you and I genuinely said you're welcome, and I meant it. It felt good to serve him.

Speaker 3:

Now it took a while for my heart to kind of catch up with what my actions should do, but it was in those little things that can turn into these big things. Even if I do 100 little things and he never says thank you, there's actually still joy in that. This sleep example might seem like a really trivial thing, but to David it was a real need at that moment, and some of your spouse's needs are going to be just that. They're going to be temporary, for practicality sake, or maybe even for the sake of physical comfort.

Speaker 2:

But the most important message we have is to focus on the needs which your spouse might not even be able to put into words. What keeps them up at night? What brings tears to their eyes at the mere mention of it? What misguided passion is a distraction for them? Focusing on their heart defines a relationship built on unity and oneness, in a way that checking off a list of practical needs just never could do. And Jesus gets to our heart level. He teaches us the way he evaluates the genuineness of our faith by watching how we react to other people's needs. And we find this in Matthew 25. It says when the son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.

Speaker 3:

Now, this is Jesus on the judgment seat. This is going to happen someday and he's going to get really real with every single one of us in that moment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It goes on to say all of the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left, and I want you to imagine you and your kids and your wife or your husband being right there. The condemned are going to go into one line and the saved are going to be put in another. It goes on in verse 34,. Then the king will say to those on the right come, you, who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance. The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Speaker 2:

Jesus is making the point here that you followed me when you understood and even anticipated someone's need and you gave of yourself to them 37 continues, then the righteous will answer him Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you, a stranger, and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go visit you? And the king will reply Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. But then he's going to say to those people on his left Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

Speaker 2:

For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger, you didn't invite me in, I needed clothes, you didn't clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you didn't look after me. And they will say to him Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty? When did we see you, a stranger, needing clothes or in prison, sick? What are you talking about? And he's going to reply truly, I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

Speaker 3:

You acted like you followed me, which we are all guilty of, but truly, he says, you just tried to get by, just doing what I asked when it felt useful to you. Lord, let that not be us. Let us be the ones that are following wholeheartedly after you and loving like you.

Speaker 2:

Jesus makes it super clear here that pursuit through giving, through serving, pursuing them because you understand, you're anticipating their real needs. This is going to be the measure that he's going to separate his followers from his fans. So which one are you? And I think we can bring this down to the level of our marriage as well Are you a fan of your spouse? Do you clap from the sidelines? Are you a follower? Someone who is in hot pursuit, meeting their deepest needs, keeping a step with the spirit so that you can be enabled to be in tune with what your spouse's real needs are, so much so that they aren't begging to get what they need from you?

Speaker 3:

Following your savior's example, you'll make it your goal to foresee your spouse's needs so well that they don't even have to think about it themselves because you've got them covered. And when they know you've got their back, they're going to rest in the security of your pursuit. Maybe today you don't really know what your spouse needs. That's okay. But don't stay there. Find out. Make it your mission to love them to the point that they can't help but see Jesus loving them through you. Let that be your mission in your marriage Jesus being passionate about their heart, their real needs, their felt needs, and just transferring that from his heart to you, to them.

Speaker 2:

A relationship is defined by pursuit. We can't be Christians or husbands on the sidelines, someone who just watches in judgment. We have a role to play, not only in the story of God's kingdom, but in the story that God is writing of your marriage.

Speaker 3:

We hope that, as we end this series, that we've given you some new perspective and some new fuel to be on mission in your marriage. If you've missed any of the six broadcasts in this Powerful Pursuit series, you can find them on our website, vowstokeepcom. Join us next week right here on Vows to Keep Radio as we continue to study God's Word and apply it to our marriages.

Speaker 1:

Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not-for-profit organization, our commitment to Christlike marriages includes providing much-needed services, regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities but would like to help support Vows to Keep financially, visit VowsToKeepcom and click on the donate link. Like what you heard today on Vows to Keep Radio, Listen to more life-changing broadcasts at VowsToKeepcom. To more life-changing broadcasts at VowsToKeepcom. No-transcript.

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David Sellars

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Tracy Sellars

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