Mutual R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Chad & Emily Van Dixhoorn

Episode Transcript

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Mutual R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Guests:Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn

From the series:Gospel-Shaped Marriage (Day 2 of 3)

Air date:July 30, 2024

Chad: I’m a little suspicious of myself, because so many other times when I thought I was entirely right, it turned out that I wasn’t. I begin by saying, “Lord, help me to see where I am wrong.”

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: Yesterday, we opened up a topic you are passionate about. It’s the “S” word—submission.

Ann: Oh, I thought you were going to talk about how the husband is called to love his wife as Christ loved the church. [Ephesians 5:25]

Dave: We’ll get there.

Ann: I love that topic.

Dave: That was another thing we talked about yesterday, and I thought we covered that one pretty good.

Ann: We’ve got Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn back in the studio with us, talking about their book, Gospel-Shaped Marriage. The subtitle really caught me, too: Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints. We all need that. We’re all sinners, but we’re called to love like saints, and that’s impossible without the power of God living in us and the gospel.

Dave: The reason I brought up submission—because you talked about it so well yesterday—but even as we went off air you said, “Submission can be hard, but it’s sometimes too easy.”

Ann: And I thought, “Wait. What?” [Laughter]

Dave: So, we are going to throw that out at you. What do you mean by that? We all want to know.

Emily: Well, there is a counterfeit submission, a fake submission, and that’s what is too easy. I’ve heard some women say, “Oh, I’m so happy, I don’t have to think about it. I’ll just let my husband make that decision, and I’ll just submit to him.”

And I’ve even felt it, because there are hard decisions to make. What school should our kids go to? How much should we spend on a house? Is it time for us to move, or is it not time for us to move? There are hard decisions to make.

We wives can say—well, one, we can be too pushy, or we can be too passive. We can say, “I’m just checking out. This is your job.” And then, we may think we are being holy and think, “Oh, I am just submitting to him. Let him make the decision.”

But we are failing to help him if we are not also rolling up our sleeves and doing the hard thinking that is involved in making a decision.

Chad: When someone does that kind of quick default to the husband—not engaging in the decision process—you’re also not learning to deal with disappointment, failure, and so on; learning to trust God yourself.

Emily: That’s right. I’ve noticed sometimes when I’m making a hard decision, I’ll say, “Oh, you just make it for me.” And Chad will say, “Well, I could.”

But the truth is, I will atrophy in my decision-making abilities if I am not making some decisions. So, he’s learned to not just step in and make a decision, but to support me in the decision that needs to be made.

Often, it’s about the household; and sometimes, there are areas that I have more information than he has, but I’m getting nervous that I’m going to make a bad decision. He will help me make it, and sometimes, I make mistakes. You have to trust the Lord in that.

Chad: She’s chosen the last seven houses we’ve lived in and has often done the negotiating. So, she’s actually quite good at making decisions. I recently went in to buy a Prius, and I walked out with a Ford F150. [Laughter]

Ann: That’s right, you did.

Chad: That was all Emily. I’m thinking, “Okay, social conscience here, I’m going to get the electric car.” But she said, “You live ten minutes from work. Do you really need that fuel efficiency? You’ve got a bad back. Go sit in that vehicle.”

I said, “Okay, maybe a big vehicle would be better. Maybe I’ll get a Ford Expedition, because, you know, that’s a good family car.” She said, “No, you’ll feel like a mom.” [Laughter]

It was just great. So, we got a new for me, but not very new truck.

Dave: My buddy has the pickup that has the massage seat. Did you get that?

Chad: No. [Laughter] Ours is a little older than that.

Dave: It massages you as you drive. That’s the way to drive.

Emily: Yes.

Dave: I couldn’t afford it, but he could.

Ann: Emily, I think it’s good to hear that side of submission, that we can just kind of hand it off to our husbands. I tend to be on that more controlling side.

Dave: No, not Ann. Never.

Ann: I like to have a say in everything. So, I think it’s good to know that we, as women, go all along that line. Sometimes, we just want to check out and let our husbands do it, or let them be responsible for it; but sometimes, we are over-controlling the situation or even manipulating the situation and our husband to get what we want. That’s not what God wants either.

When you guys talk about this area, it feels very mutual, in that you need one another. I think that’s how God designed it. I like that you are trying to outdo each other in terms of, “I want to help you to be better. I want it to be easier for you to love me. I want it to be easier for you to respect me.”

That feels very unworldly to me.

Chad: That’s because it’s a heavenly plan. This is why it feels unworldly.

Ann: There it is.

Chad: At the same time, we do have conflict. We do have arguments. We forget this overarching, gospel-oriented perspective. We offer each other, sort of, sin for sinners, to love like sinners, rather than grace for sinners, to love like saints. [Laughter] We’ve had to do a lot of thinking about conflict as well.

Dave: When you raise that issue—and you have a chapter on it—what comes to your mind first of all to help couples who say, “We fight. We have conflict. How do we gospel-shape our conflicts?” What would you say?

Emily: Yes.

What’s the real battle that you are trying to win? The real battle is to know Christ better. We are called as Christians to fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. So, sometimes, yes, we will suffer.

Knowing Christ better and showing His love to somebody else? That’s a win. That’s the real battle. Can I show Christ’s love? Can I believe the gospel? Can I believe that God can bless me no matter what this person in front of me is doing? My blessing primarily is in knowing Christ.

Chad: You can see why she’s the prayer partner, and I’m the despair partner. [Laughter]

Let me add to this—a common thought process related to this on my part—and then, Emily, maybe you can say something about how prayer fits into this as well.

When we are having a conflict, I am usually right. [Laughter] I make that point to Emily. She’s usually not convinced of that. There comes a point where we are getting into a different space physically. We just have to say, “Let me walk away and think about that. Let me pray about that.”

Usually, what happens is a cluster of things. First of all, I want to say, “Lord, help Emily to see how she needs to change,” but where the Lord often helps me to start is to say is, “Wow, I’m a little suspicious of myself, because so many other times when I thought I was entirely right, it turned out that I wasn’t.” So, I begin by saying, “Lord, help me to see where I am wrong.” Even if I think it’s only 2% of the problem—

Ann: —oh, just that prayer right there: “Lord, help me to see where I am wrong.” That is a very humble prayer and, man, we all need to pray that.

Chad: It’s a battle just to get there.

Ann: Yes.

Chad: Just to get there. Just to say, “Lord, I’m angry. I’m frustrated. I’m pretty confident I’m right, but there could be a tiny area where I’m wrong. Help me to see it.” And then, as soon as the Lord helps me to see it, which is often sooner than I expect, sometimes within an hour—

Emily: —it didn’t take Him a long time to find it! [Laugher]

Dave: It was right in front of you the whole time.

Chad: Then my next step is, “That’s something.” I can go to Emily and try and confess. I don’t say to her, “By the way, I think I’m 2% at fault.” I try to own 100% of that 2% that I’m seeing at the moment. I want to do that out of humility. I’m begging the Lord to help me do this, to have this conversation. And then, often, Emily’s heart gets nudged, moved, or melted, and she can come back with something. It has created space.

Now, I’m not doing—I’m not saying that, at my best—[that] in order to get that response. I’m saying that because that’s what God has called me to. He’s called me to confess what I do see. That’s the beginning of a good conversation, where we begin to listen to each other and to know each other afresh.

Ann: Are you careful with the words that you use as you go into that conflict?

Emily: Most definitely.

Ann: Yes

Emily: I choose my words very carefully, and I usually choose not to speak. [Laughter]

Ann: That’s usually better, as Proverbs often says.

Emily: And I remember one time when I had lost our passports, and the car was outside, and we needed to get to the airport. We were flying back to England with all our children. He is the really tidy one.

Ann: Wait! You lost all the passports?

Emily: I didn’t know where they were. They were somewhere in the house.

Ann: You knew that they were somewhere.

Emily: They were somewhere, but we needed them immediately. And he could’ve said something like, “Well, they could be in the freezer for all I know.” But he didn’t. He just looked at me and said, “I’m on your side.”

Ann: Ooh.

Chad: It was a rare moment. Honestly, she’s remembering this moment from ten years ago, probably, because it hasn’t happened since then. [Laughter]

Emily: He could have said, “This is how you keep your things orderly, Emily.” Or given me a little mini-lecture on how he organizes his bags, or where he always puts his passport whenever he travels! But he didn’t. He just communicated, “I’m on your side.”

Ann: What did you feel when he said that?

Emily: Frankly, I felt a little surprised.

Dave and Ann: Yes.

Emily: And I was impressed that he, when he was under pressure—when we were all under pressure—didn’t go into attack mode to make himself feel better in some odd way. He just leaned in and said, “I’m on your side. We’re going to work together.” And, so we did. We found the passports with the help of my brother. We made the plane, and everything worked out well. It stands out as a good memory.

I will encourage people: as you have conflicts, look to grow in God’s grace; look to trust God more. It’s a growth opportunity. We’re tempted to despair and think, “Everything is being ruined right now.” When really, your Christian growth is potentially being created.

Dave: Expand on that. You wrote a chapter about growing in your marriage. Is that what you are talking about?

Emily: Certainly, one way is in conflict; but a particular way to grow is through serving.

Chad: Yes.

Emily: A lot of us are action-oriented people. You can only read so many books, though they are helpful; but there comes a time to put the book down and get active, especially by serving together. Find a way that you can partner, that you can say, “I’m with you. I’m on your side. We’re doing this together.”

Chad: I think we kind of stumbled into that, didn’t we? That first year of marriage, especially. I would say, “Okay, we’ve got a conflict. Let’s go sit on the coach and talk through it.” Emily would sometimes just get antsy, even exasperated, with how methodically and slowly I’m trying to rehash everything. [Laughter]

Dave: She’s rolling her eyes right now.

Chad: Yes, yes. She often just needs space. She just needs to go do something, and then she’s able to process things.

Once she left the house just to go grocery shopping—we had a door that slammed a little bit. I thought, “Oh, no. She’s left in anger.” And then, I realized the car wasn’t there. She decided to do a really epic grocery shop, and I didn’t see her for ages. I thought, “Oh no! I’ve been such a jerk that she’s left me.” She just needed space. That’s one way that we help each other grow: giving each other space.

Emily: I’ll just say that I came home, and he was all sad and repentant toward me. I was thinking, “It really wasn’t a big deal. Can you just put these Eggos away? Here’s your favorite cheese. You could put that in the fridge.”

Some couples may benefit from going out and serving together. Can you serve the soccer team’s snacks together? Find something simple where you are teaming up, and you’re together, and you are looking not at yourselves, but you’re looking outward. You are looking at the needs of others. Look at how you can serve. Have people over. Be useful together, be constructive, and that will take a weight off your shoulders.

Chad: So, the first point is to give each other space; maybe it’s not the point to talk through it all. The other point is, yes, having a shared purpose is what really drew us together.

Ann: Yes.

Chad: Not another hour of analysis; not an hour of self-entertainment.

Emily: While date nights have their place, and counseling has its place, it’s just not enough. You need some momentum. Serving together is where you can get that momentum.

Dave: Is that what you would say is part of the mission of marriage from God’s perspective? It’s outward?

Chad: Multiplying your usefulness. The apostle Paul thinks about the things that singles are able to do because they are single (in 1 Corinthians 7).

Emily: Which is wonderful. Singleness is a wonderful gift.

Chad: And then, there are other things that married couples can do.

Emily: Yes.

Chad: There are singles who are amazing. They can be Mary and Martha at the same time when they are showing hospitality, but for most of us mere mortals, that kind of teamwork helps us to multiply our usefulness.

Emily: Chad, you have a little story of hospitality for you when you were a single person.

Chad: Oh, I don’t want to bore people. I was a train wreck. I once had people over. My parents did hospitality, so I thought I would try to do this myself as a bachelor. We had an apartment with some other guys, and the air conditioning didn’t work. I only knew how to cook things in the oven, which heated up the kitchen even more, so we went to eat in my bedroom. [Laughter]

This couple—they were struggling in their marriage, and I was trying to be kind to them. There were two steno chairs and a bed. Before I could get out of my mouth that you had to sit in the middle of the bed—because the slats were only in the middle of the bed, not on either end—this lady generously said, “Oh, I’ll sit there.” She sat at the foot of the bed—

Ann: —no.

Chad: —and it dropped. She jumped up in her fright, banged her head on the top bunk—on the bar—spilled this hot food all over herself, and they were gone within two minutes.

Dave: [Laughter] Really?

Chad: Emily and I do a better job together than I ever did by myself.

Ann: But your heart was in the right place. As a single guy doing that, that’s remarkable.

Dave: You needed Emily.

Chad: Yes.

Emily: So, we make a good team together. [Laughter]

Ann: I do agree. I think in our culture, in our society, it’s easy to, as a couple, just veg out on a good movie, Netflix, or whatever. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Or we go on a date night and, as you said, we entertain ourselves. But there is something about when we serve together! It puts this meaning and this purpose in our lives, in our hearts, in our marriages. From our first year, we have led some Bible study together.

Dave: For marriages.

Ann: For marriages and for other things. And I’m telling you, that has probably saved our marriage—along with the gospel—but it has made us better. I don’t know if it has helped other people [Laughter], but it has helped us a ton.

Chad: Yes, yes; that’s right.

Ann: I can remember sitting at Bible studies as he is leading, and I thought, “You are so good at this!”

Emily: Yes.

Ann: “You are amazing at this.” My respect for Dave—there are times where, maybe, he’s talked too much and I—[whispering]. I wondered: “how do I say that, in a way that”—

Dave: —on the way home! That’s how she said it.

Ann: No, I didn’t say it. I was careful.

Dave: No, you were very gracious.

Ann: But both of us:—Dave: —you were right. You are always right.

Ann: —we need each other.

Emily: Yes.

Ann: When we get our eyes off ourselves. . .

Dave: It’s such a paradox. The culture would tell you, “If you want to fill yourself up, fill yourself up. Go do whatever it is that fills you up.”

Emily: They do!

Dave: But Jesus said, “If you want to find your life, lose it.” Wait, wait. That doesn’t make sense. How do you empty yourself, and you are filled?

Ann: Yes.

Dave: That’s what He was saying.

Chad: Yes.

Dave: When you empty, and you give your life away, and you help others with their marriage, even when you are struggling in yours, it’s God’s plan. It’s as if He says, “I am going to fill you up as you empty. That’s how I designed it.” It’s so beautiful. That’s what you are saying.

Ann: Even with our kids—to watch them now, as adult parent,s go serve together in the children’s department. Watching them together just makes me so happy, as they are giving away what God has already given them in whatever means that is. What a great example that is for our kids to see!

We are talking to people our age, who are empty nesters, who feel so lost. “What’s my purpose now? My kids are gone.”

Chad and Emily: Yes, yes.

Ann: We say, “Oh, God has so much more for you!”

And doing it together is this gift we give our marriages. We can go our separate ways, because we might feel very different, gifted in different ways; but there’s still something about coming together and doing something together.

Chad: Amen. People make more friends at work than they do at movie theaters. There’s a reason behind that.

You remind us, as well–the empty nesters who are lost, just the orientation of your marriage: is it a child-centered marriage? It could be a God-centered marriage with children who come next or a God-centered marriage with a spouse that comes next. The more you are nurturing your marriage, your friendship, and your teamwork together now, the less disoriented—you’ll still be disoriented, but the less disoriented—you’ll be as the last child gets on the school bus or the last one drives off to work or college.

Ann: Let me ask you in our last few minutes—you have a daughter that’s getting married—

Emily: —yes, yes.

Ann: —soon. What does that feel like? You even address, in your book, in-laws. What does that look like? Are you nervous about it? And how can we prepare for that? Many of our listeners are in-laws, or they have in-laws, and that can be really tricky.

Emily: Well, the key command to keep in mind is—as it said in the King James—”to leave and cleave.” [Genesis 2:24] The married couple needs to leave their original family, and they cleave to one another. They are starting a new household.

I will need to respect my son-in-law as the head of their family, and for them to make their decisions. There’s an example of a mother-in-law that is a bit humorous in our history. This makes me have a lot of respect for my mother-in-law, because she had a very challenging situation.

Chad: My grandmother was a strong-willed Dutch woman, and she did not like my father’s porch on their first house. They bought it for a couple thousand dollars, and it wasn’t much of a porch to look at. That is, the house was a couple thousand dollars; the porch came free. She told them they needed to get rid of the porch, and they didn’t listen.

Eventually, my mother hears, one day, this sort of thumping out front. There was my grandmother trying to take it down with an ax.

Dave: Really?

Ann: What?

Chad: It wasn’t even her ax.

Ann: What!?

Chad: So, premarital counseling hadn’t taken that into account. Actually, they didn’t do premarital counseling back then. [Laughter]

One of the things we want to think about is—if it’s our future son-in-law’s, and our daughter’s, job to create a new family unit, how can we make that job easier for them? How can we sweeten that task?

Because they are going to be forming something new, and at the same time, there is going to be some level of stress or tension as they feel that newness. How can we make that easier for them?

Emily: If my daughter is asking me for advice, I’ll say, “Well, have you asked Patrick?” Point her to look to him first; not just come to me like she is used to coming. So, that’s one practical point.

Chad: And we’d love to see them, and we might even incentivize our time together by renting a house where we can all fit together—

Ann: Believe me. Yes, do that!

Chad: Yes, yes; but we want to be careful that we are not manipulating them; that we are first saying, “Are you getting enough time together? Because if you are, boy, we’d love to have some time with you also.”

Emily: Yes. We could volunteer for them to get a place where they could go, just for themselves.

Chad: Yes. That would be a lovely way to facilitate the leaving part and the clinging to each other.

Ann: Yes; that’s good.

Chad: So, we are just trying to think of how, as in-laws, we can not act like out-laws.

Dave: Now, are you guys grieving as you are losing your daughter to get married? Are you excited? A little of both?

Emily: I’m excited. I’m excited. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are times of some form of grieving, but I’m generally excited.

Chad: Yes, ditto. We think they’re just a great match, a lovely pair. We look forward to seeing how they will better serve—they are already beginning to better serve together than they could apart. So, we’re grateful.

Shelby: What a great perspective to have as new in-laws, with your child and their new spouse. It’s got to be so hard to let go in that way. My kids are only thirteen and ten right now, so that’s, Lord-willing, ahead in my distant future. Their perspective is really one that I want to adopt when that time comes for me.

How can it apply to you today?

I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn on FamilyLife Today. They’ve written a book called Gospel-Shaped Marriage: Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints.

You can get your copy of Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn’s book by going online right now by going online today to FamilyLifeToday.com. You’ll also find it in the show notes, or feel free to give us a call. Our number is 800-358-6329; again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

Tomorrow, Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn are going to be back with the Wilsons to talk about practical ways for husbands to embody Christ-like love and responsibility.

Chad: Am I studying my wife? Am I trying to understand her needs? Do I know her as a person? The most important orientation, as you get to study your wife, is asking how that informs my prayers. So, I pray for Emily based on that knowledge that I have of her, that growing knowledge.

Once, I was at a conference, and Emily explained how she prays for me, and I was just stunned!

Shelby: That’s 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.

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