The Grace Marriage: Brad & Marilyn Rhoads

Brad: We don’t have a great marriage because I’m great or Marilyn’s great. We have a great marriage because Jesus Christ is perfect; not because of us. It’s not [that] we’ve mastered the marriage thing. It’s just that we’ve realized more and more our only hope is in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

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: The book we’re going to talk about today with this couple is one of the only marriage books I’ve ever read where I think, “Wow! Their marriage is as bad as ours was.” [Laughter] I’m not kidding. They are—

Ann: —they started out rough like we did!

Dave: Yes. We have Brad and Marilyn Rhoads in the studio with us. I’m not kidding, guys. I’d never met you, but when I started reading your book, I thought, “Nobody is this honest in chapter one!” You were that honest. I don’t know about everybody else, but it drew me right in.

Ann: Well, we just were thinking, “We need to be friends with this couple.” They have totally been through it! And God has done a lot in your marriage.

Dave: So, it’s a privilege to say, “Welcome to FamilyLife Today.”

Brad: It’s an honor to be here.

Marilyn: Oh, we appreciate you having us.

Dave: Again, it’s called The Grace Marriage: How the Gospel and Intentionality Can Transform Your Relationship. We love Juli Slattery, by the way.

Ann: Yes, she’s a good friend.

Dave: She’s such a good friend. She wrote the foreword. Your first chapter is “How Ugly Love Can Be.” [Laughter] That’s your title, or something like that, right? Tell us a little bit about your story. First of all, what do you do, how many kids, where do you live? Tell us a little background first.

Marilyn: We live in Owensboro, Kentucky. We have five children, 24 down to 13; four girls and one boy, so our lives are pretty full.

Dave: So, most of them are still in the home?

Marilyn: Two are still in the home, two in college, and our oldest is married. So, our nest is slowly emptying. [Laughter]

Dave: Do you want to start with your story, chapter one? Tell us.

Marilyn: Well, I’m idealistic by nature, so I had this view that he was going to be my prince charming—

Ann: —yes!

Marilyn: —and we were going to live happily ever after. He was so much fun in dating. [Laughter] Like I told him in the book, “You were great at dating, but you’re horrible at being married.” [Laughter]

Ann: What did you think it would be like?

Marilyn: I really do naturally have unrealistic expectations. I kind of would like it to be heaven on earth, and we’re in a broken place, so that really just set us off. I was thinking about myself. We watch all these movies, and “He’s going to complete me,” and “He’s going to make me happy.”

Ann: Yes.

Marilyn: He was building a law practice and was paying no attention to me. I was in grad school, and he was working all day. He would come in, and he’s a huge sports fan. (I did not grow up with sports.) He would turn on the TV, and my goal was to keep him off the couch. “If we can just do something before he hits the couch,” because, if there’s a winner and a loser, he’s going to watch whatever it is. [Laughter]

That was part of it. I’m also very sensitive by nature, and he’s not. He’s really funny, so I cried a lot. He would make me laugh, even while I was crying. I’d be like, “I’m still mad at you!” [Laughter]

Brad: She’d be laughing, saying “I’m laughing, but I’m angry.”

Marilyn: “I may be laughing but I’m really upset.”

Ann: Were you trying to get her to laugh?

Brad: I was trying to build a law practice, and really didn’t try much in the marriage piece of things. I have a natural—she would say a “natural”—wit, and if it’s not intentionally controlled, it’s not overly helpful. [Laughter]

I would say, my first year, there was not a whole lot of a filter, and I was just not nice. I was rude. It was funny, and she would laugh; but it was more hurtful. I didn’t really understand. I didn’t know why she was—I just thought I had a hypersensitive, needy wife.

Ann: Wow. Do you hear those two words? “Hypersensitive, needy” wife, he said.

Brad: I just thought, “We’re going to get to a point where she’s going to settle in, and we’re going to be fine.”

Marilyn: See what he’s doing with his hands?

Ann: Yes. “Calm down.”

Marilyn: He would literally look at me and tell me to calm down with his hands.

Ann: Oh, that—and what does that do? Dave has done that to me, too. “Ann, calm down.” I’m like, “Do you want to see ‘calm?’” [Laughter]

Marilyn: That’s not the way to get it.

Dave: It just fired her up,—

Brad and Marilyn: —oh!

Dave: —because I would say, “Just relax.” I can’t even say that word ever in our house, ever again. It’s been 40-some years.

Brad: I would hold my hands up high, and I’d say, “Marilyn, calm—[speaking quietly and slowly]—

Ann: —ohhhh!

Brad: —down.”

Ann: It feels so demeaning, doesn’t it?

Marilyn: Oh, it does! Yes.

Brad: And I would even tell her, “The chill pill’s in the fridge.”

Dave: Chill pills?

Brad: I would say, “There are some chill pills in the bathroom if you want to go get one.”

Ann: Ohhhh! I will say, I had this woman write me a letter once, and she said, “I feel like my husband totally duped me.” She said, “When we were dating he would listen, we’d laugh together, we’d play together. He would look me straight in the eyes and want to know my heart and share his heart.” She said, “Then we got married. It felt like before we were married, he was hunting me.”

“He saw me, he shot me, he bagged me. He went to his house, he put me on the mantle, and now he’s off on his next adventure and his hunt.”

Marilyn: Wow. That’s a good literal picture.

Ann: I thought, “That is it.” So many of us wives feel like, “Woah! Wait, wait, wait. What happened to the guy I was dating, because now he’s off on this next adventure?” Is that what you did, Brad?

Brad: That was it exactly. I like entrepreneurship, so I’d left my law firm in Nashville. I was building a new law practice. It was so exciting! I had one staff, no clients. How exciting is that? [Laughter] So, it was like, I [was] doing everything I can to creatively build a client base, and it’s working, so I’m having a blast! She’s not having a blast. I actually put her in a bowling league to help me meet new people to get new clients.

Ann: No, you did not! [Laughter]

Brad: She was in a bowling league for 42 weeks.

Marilyn: It was terrible. And then, I was in graduate school, getting a counseling degree, so I’m studying all of this and thinking, “We don’t need to get in bad habits. If I don’t tell him now, we’re going to get in these bad habits.”

Ann: Oh, yes.

Marilyn: So, I was literally telling him everything—

Ann: —that he’s doing wrong.

Marilyn: —that he’s doing wrong, because we don’t want to get started on the wrong foot. So, that’s a horrible approach. [Laughter]

Brad: I asked her, “Am I your class project? Are you doing this on purpose so you can take notes and report back tomorrow? Because it seems like this is a little over the top.”

Ann: Dave’s words to me were, “I’m not your fixer-upper project.”

Brad: Ooh.

Ann: I’m like, “But you need it. I’m helping you, right?” [Laughter]

Marilyn: That’s right.

Ann: Yes.

Marilyn: “I’m your helpmate.”

Dave: How long did this go on?

Brad: About a year.

Dave: A year?!?

Marilyn: It was really ugly, and we were in a new town, and we didn’t know anyone, and I didn’t want to tell any of my family about it, because they’d want to kill him for their daughter being miserable.

Ann: And where were you spiritually?

Brad: I was extremely complacent. When I met Marilyn, I dropped a lot of bad habits immediately, because I knew she would break up with me instantly. So, I thought, “I’m not going to keep doing what I know is wrong and lose the best thing,” because Marilyn is an angel. She wouldn’t tell you that, but I’ve never met a human like her in my life. People that know her feel the same way, and she hates when I compliment her in front of other people.

I started going to church with her, [and] got rid of the bad habits, but I wasn’t at all leading spiritually. When we were looking at churches, Marilyn actually met with the pastor, not me. So, I was very complacent. Looking back, God used our marriage to show me my sin for the first time in just 4D, and that’s when I really think God used Marilyn to bring me into His kingdom.

Marilyn: It was about a year in that God really showed me my selfishness. Marriage is His institution. It’s not about me. It’s about it being held in honor, and it being a picture of the gospel. All I was looking at is what I wanted him to do, how I could change him, how we can have this great marriage, rather than, “Okay, God, what are You calling me to do in marriage? How are you calling me to love him?” I wasn’t doing any of that.

Ann: Oh, me neither.

Marilyn: I’m a pretty steady personality type. I was until I got married. [Laughter] And now, all of a sudden, I was a mess all the time, and I was miserable. The Lord showed me, “You’ve taken your eyes off Me. I’m your hope, not Brad! And you’ve put him in My place.” So, a year in I went to Brad, and I just asked for his forgiveness for putting him in the place of God. Christ is where my hope is and my joy is. Putting that on Brad—he can’t meet that. I apologized and said, “I’m going to start loving you the way the Lord is calling me to love you.”

Dave: How did you get to that point? How did you see that?

Marilyn: I was so miserable. I asked the Lord, “Am I sentenced to a life of this? Is this it?” I was just crying out in my prayer journal. It was not an audible voice, but I felt just pierced to the heart, how selfish I was being. That was the beginning of a change of perspective for me.

Christ came to bring life, and life to the full, and all of a sudden, I had new life to give to our marriage, because it wasn’t about me. It was about, “Okay, Lord, how are You calling me to love this man that’s my spouse?” That was the shifting point for us.

Dave: Brad, do you remember that conversation? Did it change you?

Brad: I remember it vividly, because she actually led off with, “Brad, I don’t need you.” When she said it, my mind went, “Oh, no. I didn’t think it was that bad.”

Dave: Yes.

Brad: But then she said, “And I want to ask for your forgiveness.” She said, “Christ is all I need. He is completely sufficient; my beauty, my security, my joy. One hundred percent comes from Him, not you.” I remember it vividly.

Now, I was still obsessed with new clients and building a law practice, so I didn’t become a better husband, but I remember the conversation extremely vividly, because our marriage went from a very unstable place. She specifically said, “I’ll be your wife, and I’m off your roller coaster.”

Ann: What did you mean by that, Marilyn?

Marilyn: Well, I was a roller coaster because, sometimes, we might have a good day. He might not sit on the couch and watch ESPN for hours and also listen to a game on the radio. If I could get him to go on a run or hang out with me, then we might have an okay evening. But if he was working and just watching sports, then I’d be really upset; or if he wasn’t kind. That’s the roller coaster.

What he did or didn’t do determined my mood. My hope was in the wrong place when that’s the case, and that’s still an issue, because, of course, we’re going to mess up every day. If what he does or doesn’t do can have a huge impact on my mood, I have a wrong perspective on his place, and the place of the Lord for me.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Is that something that changed? Because I’m guessing he didn’t change the next day or week.

Marilyn: No, he did not. He did not.

Dave: So, you come home, and he’s still on the couch or whatever. Was your perspective different?

Marilyn: It was very different.

Dave: Really?

Marilyn: It was. I just started sitting on the couch with him, trying to seek to serve rather than be served.

Brad: Yes, her hope was in the Lord, not me. No longer was she up and down based on how much attention I gave her. She was steady, because she was Christ’s, Who is steady and totally consistent and totally reliable, and I’m not.

Dave: And you could see it?

Brad: Oh, clearly. Our marriage went from really bad to really stable, instantly. It was stable. It wasn’t great, because I was still in the marriage, but it was stable. I was still the same.

Ann: Marilyn, how did you keep that going consistently, because, basically, Brad was your idol. You had taken him off of being the idol, putting Jesus in that place of being first place. But that’s more than one step.

Marilyn: Right.

Ann: To keep that consistent, what did you have to do?

Marilyn: You have to stay close to the Lord. In the morning, getting with Him, pouring my heart out to the Lord. It was the beginning of a work in me, and I’ve said before, I’m convinced the Lord wouldn’t have begun the work in him until I had gotten to that place. I needed to have God in His proper place. And also, my approach to trying to fix him— that’s a futile approach. [Laughter]

Ann: Talk to women that are right there, right now.

Marilyn: There are some women I’ve talked to who have been on this journey—it’s been years; twenty years.

Dave: Yes.

Marilyn: That’s hard. And when we look at Scripture, God tells us, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit.” Matthew 5:4 Seek your blessings from the Lord. That is the only place to be able to endure and love long-sufferingly: just by first going to the Lord and allowing Him to love your spouse through you. It’s the only way.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Do you think you could have found life and been happy if Brad hadn’t changed?

Marilyn: I pray so.

Dave: Yes.

Marilyn: And when we share how God has transformed our marriage, marriage is still hard.

Dave and Ann: Yes.

Marilyn: We had a stretch just a couple of weeks ago. Brad was really struggling in his spirit.

Brad: At least she told me I was. [Laughter]

Marilyn: After the fact. We were talking about it last night. There were a good two weeks there where you weren’t liking me at all.

Ann: You guys are twins.

Dave: We are twins.

Brad: I said, “I may be grouchy, but I’m not struggling.”

Dave: What happened with that thing two weeks ago? What was that about?

Marilyn: It was two-week stretch. Some things at work were really hard and stressful for Brad, and he can—

Brad: —I went and spoke somewhere and came back, and she said, “What happened when you spoke there, because you came back mean?” [Laughter]

Dave: Were you mean on stage, too? [Laughter]

Brad: No.

Dave: We’ve been mean on stage to each other, giving a marriage message.

Marilyn: Ohhhh.

Ann: We were walking yesterday, and I told Dave,—

Dave: —you don’t have to bring up yesterday.

Ann: —“We have been so mean and short to each other,” because we’re tired, we’re stressed, and there’s just a shortness.

Dave: And I think I said, “What are you talking about?”

Marilyn: Just like that.

Ann: He did.

Dave: Yes, there it is. Some of it’s just fatigue—

Marilyn: —yes.

Dave: —but some of it’s just not being kind.

Ann: So, you’re saying that even though you guys have gotten through that—you’ll tell us more about that, you still go through stretches.

Marilyn: Absolutely. We need to be reminded of the gospel every day.

Ann: Yes.

Marilyn: I scream the verse at myself in those moments: “While I was a sinner, Christ died for me.” So, what’s my response now? I have to love him despite, “He’s not easy to love right now.” He has to love me when I’m not easy to love. So, it’s an ongoing, ever-changing journey.

Brad: And because of grace, they’re typically very short now.

Marilyn: Yes.

Brad: We feel like God opened our eyes to grace. We’ll have a bad night, and we’ll look at each other and just laugh in the morning, and then just have a great morning. We understand that “sin has no dominion over us, because we’re under grace.” [Romans 6:14]

Ann: Yes. Talk about that more, Brad, because your title, The Grace Marriage—what does that mean?

Dave: Yes, define that a little bit, would you? How would you define grace?

Brad: Scripture says sin shall have no dominion, mastery, [or] control over you, because you’re under grace, not law. We don’t have a great marriage because I’m great or Marilyn’s great. We have a great marriage because Jesus Christ is perfect. I’ve been given full forgiveness, favor, and grace from Him, and live in that state of favor, and lets me love Marilyn like that.

Marilyn struggles with life; I struggle with life. We have a great relationship because of the ministry of reconciliation, and that’s Jesus Christ. It’s because I love her despite her sin; she loves me despite my sin. We have a great marriage because of Jesus, not because of us. It’s not that we’ve mastered the marriage thing. It’s just like we’ve realized more and more our only hope is in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

Because we all get knocked off our horse; we all get tired; we all say dumb things, but Jesus Christ can be put on display because two struggling people have amazing relationships, because we have a perfect Savior in Him. So, it’s helped us go from withdrawal to pursuit; more of a rescue mentality, not an offense mentality. I’ve watched Marilyn when I was in the middle of my struggle, and she was moving toward me.

Ann: Talk about the picture in your book, because you illustrate it with a picture in the book.

Brad: Yes, in the book, we have two people. When one sins against the other, they move away. When she says, “You’re not nice” to you, or he’s rude to you, the natural inclination is what? To take offense and move away. “It’s unpleasant,” and you move away. Then what happens? There’s a distance between you. What happens? Sin has dominion, mastery, control.

In a grace-based marriage, it’s different, because when one sins and moves away, the other says, “While I’m yet a sinner, Christ died for me. Love others as I’ve been loved.” And instead, it’s pursuit and kindness, which moves toward [and] closes the gap. Sin has no dominion, the ministry of reconciliation is put on play, and grace helps.

I was thinking this morning during my run, “It’s so amazing how I watched Marilyn, while I was unpleasant, pursue me.” I just thought, “Wow!” And I want to be careful to give the worship to Jesus, not worship to Marilyn, because it’s the grace of God given to me through Marilyn that allows me to have an amazing marriage despite being a little bit moody myself (or a lot moody). [Laughter]

Dave: Yes. I woke up today. I get Paul David Tripp’s email, and he has a devotional once a week. Here’s the opening paragraph. He says, “Grace is a thunderous, expansive, powerful, and life-altering word. Other than the word ‘God,’ there is no more important word that the human mind could consider [or] that the mouth could speak. It is the most transformational word in the Bible that you hold dear.”

Marilyn: Amen.

Dave: “In fact, your Bible is the cover-to-cover story of God’s grace. It is the best of stories; the story of undeserved redemption of lost ones and rebels. Scripture records for us how God reached into the muck and mire of our sin-broken world to rescue us, not because of what He saw in us, but because of what was in Him.”

As I read your book this week preparing for this, that’s what your book is all about.

Brad and Marilyn: It is.

Dave: It’s about God, and how that works out in a marriage. Even that little figure—it’s not a cartoon—of the husband and wife, that’s just such a great picture.

Marilyn: That’s what God does when we walk away, and that’s what you’re saying. That’s how you model God to the world is doing that in your marriage.

Ann: We were at this conference this last weekend in Minnesota, and a woman came up to me. She said, “My husband and I are really struggling. We had a big fight this morning, because I tend to be early; he’s running late.” She said, “I want to be on time, and I want to get a good seat. So, then he yells at me, ‘Then go without me! I’ll come later’.” So, she said, “I did, and now he’s here, and I’m here, and we’re not even sitting together,” and she started to cry.

I said, “Well, that’s okay. You’re both here. That’s a win. Now, go sit with him.” I could tell in her heart she didn’t want to, but it’s the illustration you’re talking about. I said, “I know you don’t want to, but that’s the move Jesus would make. He would just go sit by him and be together. It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. You probably both have some right and wrong, but just go sit with him.”

Dave: But how do you do that, though, when you don’t want to?

Brad: Love is doing things you don’t want to do.

Dave: There you go.

Ann: Yes.

Brad: Marilyn asked me to make a phone call the other day that was awkward. She said, “I’d really like you to make that phone call and say this,” I thought, “You make the call!” I knew she didn’t want to make the call, because Marilyn doesn’t like conflict or to ask anything of anybody, ever, so, when she walked away, I made the call. I did it.

I just thought, “Brad, you need to do things you wouldn’t otherwise do because you love Marilyn, and you need to do it on a daily basis if you want to have a marriage that has any life to it.”

Dave: Have you ever moved toward each other—I’m guessing the answer is “yes,” but I’d love to hear you say it—when you are really mad at him?
 

Marilyn: Absolutely.

Dave: Making a phone call is one thing, but “I’m mad at her, and I don’t agree with her or him, but I’m still”—yes?

Brad: We’ve actually come together intimately while we’re mad at each other. Marilyn would approach me and say, “I love you and our marriage too much to allow there to be any distance between us.” I’m like, “What are you doing? You don’t like me. I don’t like you. What are you doing?” [Laughter] That’s what she’d tell me: “Look, I love you and our marriage too much to let there be a distance.”

Dave: That makes you tear up, because that’s grace.

Brad: It is grace, and the word “pursuit.” It’s been a life of pursuing one another, doing small things for one another. To overlook an offense promotes love, and that’s what puts Jesus Christ on display, because husband, wife, Christ, the church. We want people to be married in a way that when they watch it, they see the beauty of the gospel, and they want to know the Source of that.

The Source of that isn’t two uniquely talented human beings. The Source of that is a Savior that loves us.

Marilyn: It’s out of obedience to the Lord, because this is what we’re called to. Our marriages are to be a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, whether we want to or not, we’re commanded to. So, if we’re going to Him, it’s going to fuel us to do this. It’s just so natural when we’re mad not to come together physically, and then there’s a bigger distance, and you’ll go longer not liking each other.

Like Brad said, when you get grace, you do get over things so much quicker. It’s not that you don’t struggle, but you can laugh about it the next day, like you all saying yesterday was a little hard. You can laugh today and be close because of grace.

Brad: And then the cool thing about it is—I’m pretty ADD, I’m over-committed. I love everything; everything is just big fun. I make our lives a pretty chaotic mess at times, and nobody knows what a mess I am more than her, but nobody thinks more highly of me than her. Nobody is more impressed with me; nobody looks at me like she looks at me, when I finish speaking somewhere nobody comes to me and is more affirming and encouraging to me.

The reason I feel very confident in what I do is because of how she looks at me. So, it’s kind of cool when somebody knows your worst and is your biggest fan in the world. That’s just a picture of grace as well.

Ann: It’s a picture of the gospel.

Marilyn: It also helps to have people around you that are going to point you this way.

Ann: Yes.

Marilyn: I have a good friend who, when I start to struggle will remind me (or if I need prayer), and encourage me in that way, because we need those people in our lives to point us in the right direction when we start feeling—“fleshy” is a good word.

Brad: “Fleshy.”

Ann: And that amazing grace is that Jesus, God our Father, is always moving toward us. We might not feel like He is, or deserve that grace, but He’s always moving toward us.

Brad: When my mentor was dying of brain cancer—

Dave: —is this Doug?

Brad: Yes, Doug. When he was dying of brain cancer, he called me. He said, “Brad, I can’t pray. My brain—I can’t focus or think.” He said, “I can’t read the Bible.” He said, “But I’ve never felt the love of Jesus like that before, and I’ve learned it’s all Him. It’s all Him.” He said, “I’ve never been happier in Jesus than I am at this minute, and I can’t do anything.” He said, “So, be encouraged with His love.”

Ann: That’s a good word.

Dave: Yes. I want to hear a little bit more about Doug tomorrow, because I heard your story about his impact in your life, and it’s transformational.

Brad: Absolutely.

Shelby: Wow. Yes, I can’t wait to hear more about Doug and his impact on Brad tomorrow, because, if that was his perspective at the end of his life, I want to hear anything that man said.

I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Brad and Marilyn Rhoads on FamilyLife Today. Brad and Marilyn have written a book called The Grace Marriage: How the Gospel and Intentionality Transform Your Relationship. You can get your copy right now by going online to FamilyLifeToday.com, or you can click on the link in the show notes.

Or feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329 to request your copy. Again, that number is 800–“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

Are you looking for the perfect gift for your spouse, or maybe even for another couple? Well, Weekend to Remember^®gift cards are now 50 percent off, and that gives you the opportunity to invest in your relationship now and choose your getaway later on (like the location where you want to go later on). So, don’t miss this chance to strengthen your marriage at half the cost until September 16th.

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Now, coming up tomorrow, Brad and Marilyn Rhoads are back with the Wilsons to talk about practical tips for navigating challenges and fostering closeness in your marriage. I think all of us could use help with that, so they’ll be here tomorrow to talk about it. 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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