Gary Chapman: 5 Traits of a Healthy Family

Gary: You know, if you feel loved by your spouse, life is beautiful; but if you've lost it, then where are you going to start to rediscover it? It’s not in telling them, “You need to be doing this, and you need to be doing that.” No, it's in asking those three questions. It can revolutionize your life!

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: If you go back to day one of our marriage 44 years ago, I was convinced that “I am going to build the greatest marriage and greatest family ever.”

Ann: I thought that, too.

Dave: Yes.

Ann: I wanted to.

Dave: And then we got married, and I realized I have no idea—

Ann: —I had no idea.

Dave: —how to do this. [Laughter]

Ann: I had never seen it. I didn't know how to do it, but we had a heart that wanted it.

Dave: Yes, but I get so scared, because I'm like, “I don't know what to do.” I grew up in a divorced home. You grew up—I thought your home was fantastic!

Ann: It was! My parents were great. They were married over 70 years, but it wasn't a Christ-centered home,—

Dave: —yes.

Ann: —and I wanted that, and I didn't know what it looked like.

Dave: We wanted a healthy home, and we've got the guy with us today.

Ann: Yes!

Dave: Because every person listening wants that; whether we came from it or not, we want to build that. So, Dr. Gary Chapman, a beloved friend of FamilyLife Today, is back to talk about—your book is called Five Traits of a Healthy Family.

Gary, welcome back!

Gary: Well, thank you! It's great to be with you again.

Ann: Take us back to the beginning of your marriage, because I bet a lot of our listeners haven't heard this.

Gary: Well, we had a similar experience, to be honest with you, to what you've just shared, because we were both Christians, and I had known her my whole life. We grew up in the same church. I was in love with all those high, euphoric feelings, and we were going to have the greatest marriage the world had ever known. [Laughter] Nobody told me, first of all, that the average lifespan of those euphoric feelings that we call “being in love” is two years.

Ann: That's average, two years?

Gary: That's average, two years (some a little longer, some a little less); average, two years. We had dated seriously for two years before we got married. So, I came down pretty soon after the honeymoon. [Laughter] And then, we had conflicts, and I didn't dream we'd have conflicts. You're in love. You know, “Whatever she wants is fine with me.” [Laughter]

Dave: Yes.

Gary: So, we ended up arguing. I knew I was right; she knew she was right. We tried to convince each other, and we raised our voices. Looking back on it, I think God was using that, and did use that, to give me empathy for people who are struggling in their marriage—

Ann: —yes.

Gary: —because I thought, “If we were Christians”—like we were at that time, and we were both committed—”and we had all those problems, man, I can be empathetic with people that have problems.” So, God used it, but it was a hard, hard time.

Dave: How did you dig out? How long did that go?

Gary: It went on really—and not only did I lose the euphoric feelings, then I got negative feelings toward her.

Dave: Yes.

Gary: And then, I started thinking, “I made a mistake.” And then I got mad at God, because I said, “I prayed before we got married: ‘Don't let me marry her if she's not the right one. And You let me do it’.” The other factor was: two weeks after we got married, I enrolled in seminary to study to be a pastor. [Laughter]

Dave: Wow.

Gary: So, here I am studying to be a pastor, and I'm miserable in my marriage, and I'm thinking to myself, “There is no way I will ever be able to get up and preach hope to people and be this miserable in my marriage.”

But what revolutionized it, really, is [that] I said to God one day, “I don't know what else to do. I've done everything I know to do. It's not getting any better. If anything, it's getting worse. And I don't know what else to do.” As soon as I said that, there came to my mind a visual image of Jesus on His knees, washing the feet of His disciples—

Ann: —ohhh!

Gary: —and I heard God say, “That's the problem with your marriage.”—

Dave: —really?

Gary: —"You do not have the attitude of Christ toward your wife.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks, and I just wept. I broke down and wept. And I said, “Forgive me. With all my study of theology, I've missed the whole point.” Then I said, ”Please, give me the attitude of Christ toward my wife.”

In retrospect, it's the greatest prayer I ever prayed for my marriage, because God changed my heart—

Dave: —did He?

Gary: —and gave me a desire to serve her. Three questions made it practical, and when I was willing to ask these three questions, my marriage began to change.

Ann: Everybody—[Laughter] we're all getting out our pens, [saying], “Okay, what are they?”

Gary: Simple questions. Number one: “Honey, what can I do to help you?”

Ann: Oh, game changer right there! [Laughter]

Dave: Did you just hear my wife? [Laughter] That’s telling you everything you know about my marriage, Gary. “Oh, game-changer!”

Gary: That's the first one.

Ann and Gary: “What can I do to help you?”

Gary: Second question: “How can I make your life easier?”

Ann: Oh! [Laughter]

Dave: Honey, can you keep the emotions down a little bit? [Laughter]

Gary: And the third question: “How could I be a better husband?” When I was willing to ask those questions, she was willing to give me answers. [Laughter]

Dave: Yes.

Gary: So, I started doing those things. It didn't turn around overnight, but within three months, she started asking me those three questions: “What can I do to help you? How can I make your life easier? How can I be a better wife?”

We've been walking this road a long time now. We've been married 62 years.

Dave: Wow.

Gary: I told her the other day: “Carolyn, if every woman in the world was like you, there would never be a divorce.” Why would a man leave a woman who's doing everything she can to help him? My goal through these years has been to so serve her that, when I'm gone, she would never find another man who treated the way I've treated her. [Laughter]

Dave: Yes.

Ann: Oh, that’s so good!

Gary: I believe this is God's intention. God did not ordain marriage to make people miserable. He made us for each other. If we do it God's way, serving each other, we both become winners.

In the early years, we were both losers. We shot each other, and we stayed wounded most of the time; but then, you become winners, and you can turn and bless the world using your individual abilities to help other people.

Dave: That's one of the first pillars or traits, you call them, —

Gary: —yes.

Dave: —of a healthy family; it is serving.

Gary: Yes.

Ann: These are simple, but hard, questions to ask. What would keep someone from asking those questions?

Gary: A selfish heart; and that's where all of us are.

Ann: Yes.

Gary: That's where I was in the early days: selfish. “I want my way. My way is the right way.”

Love is the opposite of selfishness. But the good news is, we choose our attitude. We don't choose our feelings. We choose our attitudes. So, if we choose an attitude of love, it's an attitude of service, because Jesus said about Himself: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” If we have an attitude of love, then we will serve.

What I'm trying to do in this book, Five Traits of a Healthy Family, is to help people who, in our generation, don't even know what a healthy family looks like.

Dave: Right.

Gary: I'm saying that one of the traits of a healthy family is, there should be an attitude of service on the part of the husband and the wife. It can start with one or the other. lt started with me in our marriage. But then, also, we're serving our children, and then, we're teaching our children how to serve each other and how to serve us, that service is a big deal in our family. In a healthy family, that attitude of service will permeate the family.

Wherever you are in the journey, if you're already married, then you ask yourself: “Who has an attitude of service in our family?” If nobody does, then why don't you start with yourself? Say, “God, give me the attitude of Christ toward my wife, toward my children” (if you have children). It can start anywhere, any juncture, in a family. We can always take this step to begin to move in a positive direction.

Dave: Well, it’s interesting: you look at those three questions you just asked and, so often, we do the absolute reverse.

Gary: Yes.

Dave: “How can you help me?” [Laughter]

Gary: Yes.

Dave: “How can you serve me? How can you make my life easier? How can you make me a better man or better woman?”

Gary: Yes.

Dave: And that's just, like you said, selfish.

Ann: Well, in my—

Dave: —it's got to be Jesus transforming your heart, or you'll never get there.

Gary: Yes.

Ann: My response would have been: “Why don't you ever help me? [Laughter] Why don't you make my life easier?” And when you say, “How can I be better?” I'd be [thinking], “You have made me worse.” That's selfish as well.

Gary: Oh, yes.

Ann: You, putting your eyes on your spouse, thinking, “The reason we're not doing well is because of him.”

Gary: Yes, absolutely.

Ann: You can go both ways.

Gary: Yes, absolutely.

Ann: So, to be the first to bow—it's really, to me, bowing before Jesus.

Dave: How do you coach somebody to do that when their answer is going to be, “Yes, but my wife”—

Ann: —"You don't know who I'm married to.”

Dave: —"My husband does nothing.” [and on and on]

Gary: Yes, yes.

Dave: “I don't want to do that. I'm going to wait until he makes the first move.” What do you say?

Gary: Well, you can wait a long time. [Laughter]

Dave: That's a good answer! [Laughter]

Gary: If I'm talking to a husband, I'm saying, “You be the man to lead.”

Dave: Yes.

Gary: If I'm talking to the wife, and her husband won't come, I’m saying, “You take the start.”

Dave: Yes.

Gary: It's hard to reject a spouse who's serving you.

Dave: Right; that's a magnet.

Gary: It is.

Dave: You're drawn to that.

Gary: I had a young man say to me one day, he said, “Gary, the first month we got married, my wife served me breakfast in bed. It took me a month to get up the courage to tell her that I don't eat breakfast.” [Laughter] It's hard to turn away from service.

Dave: Yes, yes.

Gary: This whole thing of serving is so important and teaching our children to serve.

I remember, when our kids were 10 to 14—those years right along in there; we have a boy and a girl and they're four years apart—in the fall in North Carolina, the leaves fall. So, I would get the two kids in the car with the rakes in the back of the car, drive through the neighborhood, and look for yards where the leaves had not been raked. I would knock on the door and say, “Hi, I'm Gary Chapman, and we live down the street, and I'm trying to teach my children how to serve other people. If you don't mind, we'd like to rake your leaves for you.” [Laughter] They would say, “Say what?” [Laughter] And I would repeat my little speech.

Dave: “How much are you charging?” Yes.

Gary: Then they would say, “Oh, I will pay you to rake my leaves. I've been looking for somebody to rake my leaves.” I said, “No, I don't want money. I'm trying to teach my children how to serve other people. I just want to do this for you.”

I never had anybody that wouldn't let us rake their leaves. [Laughter]

Ann: Did your kids ever get mad about that, [saying], “Oh, Dad”?

Gary: No, they loved it.

Dave: Really?

Ann: They did?

Gary: They loved it. And the part they really liked is when you get them all in a pile and you jump in the pile. [Laughter]

Dave: Yes.

Ann: So, you had fun doing it.

Gary: Oh yes, it was a fun thing.

Ann: Yes.

Gary: It was a fun thing. We talked about it beforehand, how we're going to help this lady or this man. Now, our two grown children both have an attitude of service.

Our daughter is a medical doctor; she delivers high-risk babies. She loves what she does. Our son, for years, has worked with people on the street. Really, when you think about it: imagine what would happen in our country if every Christian had an attitude or service.

Dave and Ann: Yes.

Ann: Gary, for young families, you gave us that one example. Let's say you have—you're tired and you've put in a long day of work and, “Now, I have to teach my kids to serve!” Talk to that mindset, and even if you have a two-, four-, and six-year-old. Where does this start? How can I get that mindset, not only in myself, but my kids?

Gary: Yes, I think when they're little like that, you help them serve each other.

Ann: What’s that look like?

Gary: The one that's a few years older than the little one: “Let's help him put his toys up” or “let's help him or her make her bed.” Rather than you just doing it all, you're getting them to help the younger ones along the way.

Dave: That’s good.

Gary: Then, they're seeing you serve your wife, and you talk about it. You talk about in the family. In fact, when they're a little older, you can say, after dinner at night: “Let’s everybody share one way that you served somebody else today.” Little Johnny says, “Well, I did this,” or if he's in kindergarten, he might say, “Well, Mary's pencil broke, and I took it to the teacher, and she gave her a new pencil.” All the family says, “Yay!” [Applause]

Then Daddy tells something he did to help somebody, and Mother does the same thing. It can be in the family or out of the family; but what we're teaching them, just by having that little report time, is: “Our family’s all about serving other people. This is what life is about, serving other people.”

Ann: You had that mindset as a young man, even in your ministry and discipleship. Where did that come from?

Gary: Yes, I don't know that my parents consciously ever talked about that, but that's what they did. Dad would go mow yards for people if they were in the hospital and that kind of thing; Mother was always baking stuff and taking it to people. So, I grew up in a family where that was—and then our church, the young people, always did things like that.

Ann: Really?

Gary: The youth group would go out and do things like that.

So, yes, and not consciously; I wasn't thinking at that time that “I'm developing an attitude of service.” I was just thinking, “This is a part of life, and this is a good part of life. It's serving other people.” So, I'm very fortunate with that.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: When you told the story about your marriage starting out that way, you mentioned that in Chapter One: From Pain to Pleasure—

Gary: —yes—

Dave: —how long did it take then to dig out of the pain and start to feel those euphoric feelings again?

Gary: Well, whenever she started asking me those questions, and she started responding to what I said, then my positive feelings began to come back. But before that, they weren't there when I was asking her those questions. I still didn't have the positive feelings. I just had the attitude: “This is what God wants me to do.”

Ann: It was out of obedience.

Gary: Yes, it's an obedient attitude to God, but I wasn't pushed by my feelings. I was pushed by the reality [that] I had failed in being an example of service to her.

Dave: Yes.

Gary: The feelings came back. The Bible says, “We love God because God first loved us.” So, whether it's a husband or wife who starts the process, love stimulates love. If you're serving me in a way that's meaningful to me, then I'm going to be drawn to you.

Dave: Yes. It's interesting, too, when you think: “If I want to get the love back in my marriage, or really in anything, I need something to be given to me. I need you to respond to me.” And you're saying, “It's what Jesus said: ‘Give your life away’.”

Gary: Yes.

Dave: It's like, “Empty yourself. You'll be filled.” That's what happened.

Gary: Yes. I recognize we have an emotional need to feel loved.

Dave: Right.

Gary: I'm not denying that. It's one of our fundamental needs, to feel loved. If you're married, the person you would most like to love you is your spouse. If you feel loved by your spouse, life is beautiful; but if you've lost it, which all of us do, then where are you  going to start to rediscover it? It's not in telling them, “You need to be doing this, and you need to be doing that.” No, it's in asking, “What can I do?”

Those three questions can revolutionize your life. Essentially, looking back on all of that, her answers were telling me her love language.

Ann: That's what I was going to ask: based on what she answered with, could you tell—were they similar to her love language?

Gary: Yes. See, I knew nothing about love languages—

Ann: —right.

Gary: —in those days. I didn't have a concept in those days.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: There's a book about it. I don't know if you've heard…? [Laughter]

Ann: The author’s good.

Gary: But looking back on it, —

Ann: —yes, what did she say?

Gary: —that's exactly what she was doing. She was telling me. Well, she said, “What can I do to help you?” “Honey, if you could wash the dishes at night, that would be such a help to me.”

“How can I make your life easier?” It was things like: if I would do something else for her; if I would put gas in the car, or something else.

“How could I be a better husband?” It was always things I could be doing.

Ann: Hmm, that's a clue.

Gary: Yes.

Ann: What were your answers to her when she asked you those questions?

Gary: Well, mine were that she would express some appreciation for the things I was doing, “Say, once in a while, ‘Honey, I really appreciate you washing dishes.’ That would be meaningful to me.”

“How could you make my life easier? By saying something positive about me.” [Laughter]

Dave: So, you're “Words of Affirmation,” and she's, “Acts of Service”.

Gary: She’s “Acts of Service.”

Dave: Wow.

Gary: Yes.

Dave: Yes. There it was.

Gary: So, in a sense, we discovered how to love each other without the concept—

Ann: —yes.

Gary: —of the love languages.

Dave: Yes.

Gary: There were many good marriages before I wrote The Five Love Languages.

Ann: Sure.

Gary: But those who were thriving were couples who had learned how to express love to each other—

Ann: —without even knowing it.

Gary: —without even knowing the concept.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Well, your books said Five Traits. Are you “The Five Guy”? Everything's five. [Laughter]

Gary: Well, I do like five. [Laughter]

Dave: Gary, you both like five. [Laughter] I'm guessing “serving one another” is one?

Gary: Yes.

Dave: Okay, what's the next one?

Gary: In a healthy marriage, a healthy family, there will be intimacy between the husband and the wife. The Genesis passage where God said about Adam, “It's not good for man to be alone (cut off, isolated). I'm going to make him a helper, and the two will become one flesh” (deep, deep intimacy).

So, in a healthy family, the marriage, the couple, will have intimacy. Now, most people, when you say that word, they're thinking of the sexual part of marriage.

Dave: Right.

Gary: It's far more than that. It's intellectual intimacy: sharing our thoughts, our ideas, our plans, our visions, our dreams of the future; intellectually discussing things. It's emotional intimacy. And this is where, yes, the love language fits in there. There's emotional intimacy. You feel loved by each other, but you're also sharing your feelings with each other.

One of the things I suggest in the conferences that I do is the minimum, every day, would be: “Tell me three things that happened in your life today, and how you feel about them.”

Ann: Minimum; that's a minimum.

Gary: A minimum, and they don't have to be important things.

Ann: Yes.

Gary: You can say, “Well, honey, I stopped on the way home to get gas in the car.” “How'd you feel about it?”

“To be honest, I felt angry. I looked at the price of it, [Laughter] and I felt angry.” Sharing your emotions with each other.

Dave: Yes.

Gary: So, it's emotional intimacy. Then it's social intimacy: we're sharing life with each other outside the family; we're doing things together outside the family. Then obviously, it's sharing physical intimacy, and then spiritual intimacy; both of those.

By spiritual intimacy, I don't mean you preach to each other. But I mean, you do share it with each other: “Honey, I read this passage this morning. It was so meaningful to me, and I just want to share it with you.” You're not saying, “I read this, and you need to hear it.”

Ann: Yes.

Gary: You just share life with each other. Then, the whole physical thing.

Dave: Do you guys pray together?

Gary: Yes. I teach people how to pray silently. I found out, in my conferences, not more than 15% of the couples that attend my conference—and most of them are Christians—not more than 15% pray together each day if you don't count, “Thank you for the food. Amen.” 

So, I say, “Let me teach you an easy way to pray. Hold hands. Close your eyes. Pray silently. When you get through praying, you say, ‘Amen’ out loud, so they know you’re through. You hang on until they say, ‘Amen’ out loud.” I said, “Anybody here think you couldn't do that?”

Then I take them through the motions of doing it, and I say, “Now, I want you to—”

Ann: —yes.

Gary: —”this is your homework tonight: pray together silently.” I said, “If you'll start this, about six months down the road, one night, one of you will slip up and pray out loud. [Laughter] But if you never pray out loud, it'll help you. You come together, silently praying.”

Dave: Yes, I saw a statistic just this year—it's about a seven- or eight-year-old statistic from Gallup—that said, “Divorce rate in our culture is 50%. In the church, it's about 27% (so, it's less). But for a couple that prays together (didn't say daily, it said regularly), it's 1-in-1021, or something like that.

Gary: Well, yes.

Ann: But Gary, I like that, because praying out loud—if you've never done it, it's very intimidating—

Gary: —yes, right.

Ann: —and feels scary. You're very vulnerable. So, I like that; that if taking that step is too big of a step, then just hold hands and pray silently together.

Gary: Yes, absolutely. You cannot come to God together every night, silently, and it not begin to affect the way you treat each other.

Dave: Yes.

Gary: Spiritual intimacy.

Dave: I know, in our marriage, it was often easier for me to approach Ann intimacy-wise physically than it was emotionally. That was scarier.

Gary: Yes.

Dave: Because I didn't want to open my heart. I mean, I wanted to, but I was afraid to.

Gary: Yes.

Ann: And yet it was harder for me—

Dave: —yes.

Ann: —because emotionally, we weren't intimate, and so it felt weird and almost disconnected to my heart.

Gary: Yes.

Ann: So, it made me feel vulnerable.

Dave: Yes. What do you say to the guy that's like me [thinking], “Oh, that's scarier than talking, to actually share an emotion”—

Gary: —yes, yes.

Dave: —"and a fear or a weakness or a struggle with my spouse. I often just keep a wall up”?

Gary: Yes. I would say, that's one reason why the sexual part of the marriage is probably not what you want it to be; because, until she feels connected with you emotionally, that you're sharing your life and being honest and open with her, then she's far less interested in being physically intimate with you.

Dave: Yes.

Gary: So, yes, they're all tied together.

Dave: So, in some ways, for me, it's “have the courage.” You have got to have courage.

Gary: Yes.

Dave: It's scary. Step in there. The only other thing I'd add is: if your husband does that, and he's never done it, do not respond with, “That's all you’ve got?” [Laughter] (or something negative). He just stepped out, and you sort of squashed him. Guess what? He's not stepping out there again.

Gary: Yes.

Dave: But if you said, “Thanks for sharing;” that's going to lead to more intimacy.

Gary: Yes.

Ann: Well, guys, I'm still stuck at the beginning. [Laughter] I'm just thinking about [how] I might say these things, but do them with an attitude of being a martyr, of a servant. But what would it look like if I said: “Honey, what can I do to help you? How can I make your life easier? And how can I be better?” You have to be humble—

Gary: —yes.

Ann: —to be able to say those things.

Dave: I'm looking forward to that conversation. [Laughter]

Ann: I was convicted, but it’s really good.

Shelby: It's amazing how a lack of selfishness and being purposefully others-focused can improve your relationships in practically every way. And we've only covered part of what Dr. Chapman wants to share with us about the traits of a healthy family. There's going to be even more tomorrow.

I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Dr. Gary Chapman on FamilyLife Today. Doctor Chapman has written a book called Five Traits of a Healthy Family: Steps You Can Take to Grow Closer, Communicate Better, and Change the World Together.

This book is going to be our gift to you when you give any amount today. You can get your copy right now by going online and giving your donation at FamilyLifeToday.com. Click on the “Donate Now” button at the top of the page, or just give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” Or feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like. Our address is FamilyLife, 100 Lake Hart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832.

Now, coming up tomorrow, Dr. Chapman is back with Dave and Ann Wilson to talk about husbands being loving leaders and parents teaching and training their children. That's coming up tomorrow. We hope you'll join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife^®, a Cru^® Ministry.

Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you’ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? 

Copyright ^© 2024 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

www.FamilyLife                                

1