Emotional Struggles in Marriage

How we think, feel, and behave have critical impacts within the individual context of marriage. They're really exploring how our emotions then correspond to our actions may help us learn our spouses better. Take note, the following episode will cover emotional reactions and behaviors that may be triggering to some. As you're listening, you may notice that these topics are complex, and may go beyond what a mentor or counselor can help with. If you think or feel that you may be working through one or more of these emotions, we encourage you to seek out professional counseling and psychiatric support. This is Together. This is Together, an Ada Bible Church podcast about the world of marriage, where we attempt to invite you to explore the ways that marriage works and doesn't work. From practical ways of learning to biblical inspiration, we invite you to listen to other professionals and couples to help enrich your marriage. Here are your hosts Samuel Jones and Dr. Kelly Boniwell. Hey everybody, welcome back to Together. This is of course Samuel and Kelly. And it is a wonderful day outside. It's a blessing to be able to continually get outside now and see our families, see those we may have missed over the course of the last year. Individuals are deciding that they're safe to travel and or getting out and looking at the beautiful sun. Spending time in the park. How have you been doing, Kelly? I'm doing great, Samuel. Thanks for asking. No nothing, nothing big happening in my life, just the daily conversation, but otherwise very, very good. I thought that back some time ago, you have a favorite team that you were watching. And unfortunately, that team lost in a tournament called the NCAA tournament. How do you feel about that? You are mean. So, we're our listeners. I am an Align, I basketball fan and they were the number one seed in the Midwest and they can be in their second game. In fact, they were beat pretty soundly by Loyola. And what I always tell people, Samuel, being an Illinois basketball fan is a little bit like being a Cubs fan. You always have your art dash. So, I'm kind of used to it. Hey, well, I share that sentiment with you because unfortunately, in that same tournament, you know, my team Michigan lost and that reminds me every single time of, you know, how great and how bad the Detroit Lions are in regards to they set it up. They look like they're going to deliver then they just drop the ball. So, you know, it's okay though, you know, because, you know, it'll get better. Maybe not in my lifetime, but maybe in the next. So, it's all good. But enough about that, we're going to be talking about, you know, emotional struggles and relationship to marriage. And, you know, when I think about this Kelly, I mean, this particular day and this particular issue, you know, I think it's important because, you know, we have to navigate and understand that our personal issues impact our marriage and our families, you know, whenever there's a problem, I remember you always saying this to us and marriage mentors at Ada Bible that marriage problems are often individual problems. And if we begin to at least look in the mirror, you know, or navigate things personally, getting our secret time, our chair time and look at these things, we'll also navigate that. Oh, we need to learn and grow from these moments where there are those individual issues because, you know, sometimes in our first steps, whenever we see that there's an issue or a potential problem in our marriages, you know, we'll often project that upon someone else and be like, "Well, that's not me, it's them, we'll do the finger point." Yeah. But the finger point. Exactly. Exactly. But, you know, I don't know if everybody's grandma's like this, but my grandma would always say, "Hey, if your finger's point, guess what you got four point right back at you." Yeah, that's a good one. Listen, so I think it's so important that we, you know, look at things from an individual context and I agree with that sentiment. And in that, you know, you've also talked to me about what we'll talk about today and that's those four key chief struggles that we have as individuals, one being anger, two being anxiety, three being less and four being depression. And those key areas are where we often struggle. And if we can navigate and find that we have one of at least one or two of those key areas in our life and we focus on them, they can become better in regards to these pieces. You know, so I think that it's just a setup for us, you know, to navigate these things today and work through them and talk about them if you're with your spouse, you know, make sure you gather them close because today's conversation is really going to be good and hopefully very helpful for your marriage. But before we kind of get into this even further, I think it's a really important Kelly, you know, that we talk about our brains. We're going to talk about our brains. Yeah. You know, I think people forget that they have them sometimes. But you know, so funny because they're so complex and so dynamic and you know, you know, if you've ever taken a psychology course or you've ever taken, you know, some type of even a Google scholar, you know, thing and then check that out, you would be able to see that they have these huge, you know, pretty cool charts that talk about how the brain is composed and what those things work. But I think it's important because God made us Kelly so complex and so, you know, intricate and in those intricacies, you know, when we understand what our, how our brain is composed, it only helps us navigate those things, you know, with more competence and confidence knowing that, oh, this is why I feel like I know this is why I'm thinking and, you know, one thing that you mentioned before we talked about this podcast was this aspect of multi-dimensional thinking. And, you know, in that term, we we talk about how you can be doing several things at once, right? You could be in the kitchen cooking and thinking about your kids playing in the room next to you. You could be literally on the football field, you know, right in that moment, thinking about how I'm going to navigate getting through this defensive or offensive linemen and at the same time thinking about, man, I'm hungry. Why did I choose not to before the game? You know, you could be on the golf course and literally, you know, I'm about 150 yards away from the pin and then at the same time, you could be thinking about your wife who's who was angry at you for leaving to go to the golf course while she was doing something. So, you know, that's the intricacies of the brain. And while you can talk and think about different things, I think it's so important that we navigate that, oh, you know what, there's aspects of our brain that do certain functions that make us do those things. It could be, for example, the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe is located right above your ears and plays a role in emotion and learning based on what you hear and how you understand information. Next to that temporal lobe is what's called the frontal lobe and is primarily concerned with emotion as well. It's concerned with reasoning and that allows you to also be creative, judge and/or problem solve information. Samuel, I got an interesting that Julie kind of has told me especially consistently when our boys were teenagers. Yeah. The frontal lobe is not fully developed. I think until you're 23, wow. Oh, that's why teenagers don't always make the best decisions. That's why. So, you're telling me that's why I went to the party when I was like 15 and shouldn't have and then my mom got it and did some very nice nice things to me. Got it. That's why. Because I wasn't fully developed. You know why do we think they were fully developed at 17 then. Exactly. And then so temporal lobe, that's the frontal lobe. There's also what's called the cerebral cortex. That controls thinking, language and perception, which we'll talk a little bit about that thinking piece today, right? And then there's the amygdala. And the amygdala controls emotions, which we'll also talk about today. And that helps you determine if you're happy or sad. And then lastly, all of that, there's other pieces of the brain, but I think another important piece is the hippocampus. You know, because that helps store and form memories. And I think that just the caveat here, Kelly is that with all of these dynamics of the brain, we have to also be true to ourselves as counselors in sharing that, you know, not everyone's chemicals are in a balanced state in their brain. And when you have chemicals that are unbalanced, you have things that are going on, you know, you're going to have biological factors that can impact all of those things and make you feel like, oh, you know what, I'm thinking these types of thoughts. So I'm feeling up and down. My mood is this way one day and another day it's another way. And whenever those things are happening in your brain is very important to make sure that you get support that you need, whether that's medicine or going to talk to a psychologist or psychiatrist for support. And sometimes those things play a true role in how you're navigating and being and showing your behavior in a sense and merit. So I think that those are important pieces, just to understand just to start the conversation. That's great, Samuel. Yeah. So to kind of continue that conversation, you know, the Bible is very clear in Corinthians, first Corinthians, it says that Paul charges us to renew our mind. And one of the things that healthy people do is they are consistently asking themselves, "Hey, what am I thinking about?" Because our thinking directs our feelings and then our feelings direct our behaviors or our actions. One way to think about this, I wish, in a way I wish we were doing a YouTube video because this is the one, one of the times that I wish our listeners could see something. So for those listeners, imagine a circle and at the top of the circle, you're going to write the word thinking. And then, one third way down, you're going to write another word and that word is feeling. And then another one third away around, you're going to write behaving or acting. And that is, that's either a positive cycle for us or it's a negative cycle for us. And so our thinking again drives our feelings and then our feelings drive our behaviors. And again, that can be negative or positive. And with the four aspects that we're going to talk about today that Samuel mentioned, we're going to be talking about these dynamics of anger, lust, depression, and anxiety. And one way to think about this, sometimes our thinking, because you talked about multi-dimensional thinking, sometimes our thinking is very kind of practical. Like, I got to go to the grocery store, I've got to get an oil change, I've got to talk to my spouse about a possible vacation we're going to take. Very practical things. There's not, there's no emotion connected to that thinking. But throughout the day, often, we are thinking that has one of those four dynamics of anger, lust, depression, or anxiety attached to our thinking. And sometimes again, that's positive, but sadly, it's often negative. Another way to think about this Samuel is, I wish at the end of the day, there would be a report generated for me of what I thought about that day. And at 10 o'clock, there'd be a print out at my printer, I could go look at it, I could read it. And there would be some days, I'd read that report, and I'd be like, wow, I had a really good day of thinking. And if I had a good day of thinking, I probably had a good day of feeling, and I probably had a good day of behaving. But there's some days I'd look at it, and I go, ooh, that was in a good day. And again, maybe even some days I'd be like, oh, that was a really bad day. And so, one of the things I often ask clients to do, especially if they, one way to think about this Samuel, often, people are coming forward for counseling because of one of these four dynamics of anger, lust, depression, or anxiety. That's these key ingredients are really a big reason why people come to counseling. And so, one place that I start, if I'm working with a client with one of these, I ask them to literally journal out what they're thinking in terms of what's connected to one of these four. Yeah. And this again will help you be more conscious of what you're thinking throughout the day. Yeah. That's so important. Like, because I could see how if we're not conscious, it's like it's the phrase, we need to be aware of thinking about what we're thinking about. It's so important to do that because if you don't, if you're not conscious of it, you know, you can just take a certain, you know, a certain day that you're having, you're just going about it, you're doing things, you know, that you're, that you're typically doing from a routine standpoint. And you don't know what potential damage or what potential issues or ignoring certain things the way that your brain is working. And that can cause issues in the long term, you know, if you're just so routinely doing things without thinking about them. And then on top of that, this next aspect of feeling, we have to be conscious of how we feel. I think it was Pastor Jeff, Jeff Manion, that mentioned it. He said, we have to be conscious of how we feel, you know, what, what, what we're navigating, we're feeling certain types of things. How do we feel about that? Because growing up, you know, you could have been taught to, you know, ignore your emotions, you know, as men, we ignore our emotions often cases. And we try to in texture and in what's the word I'm looking for, be intelligent or in texturalized things that, you know, we need to actually navigate with more emotion, not knowing that our thoughts drive our emotions, right? If you're taught not to, you know, not feel if you're taught not to, you know, appreciate an emotional response, then you try to go for go that and just behave or or do something in regards to your behaviors. Yeah, I think that's important, Kelly. That's so thank you for sharing that. I think, you know, in relationship to that, there are some pieces that we can actually correspond this to the Bible because, you know, when we're on this podcast and sharing these things, we're always going to give you what the word says. And here's a, did you know, did you know that there are so many examples of anger, lust, depression, anxiety in the Bible. And we're going to talk about a couple of those, you know, for example, if you look at Jesus in the temple, you know, here's here's a here's a game show type, you know, what what emotion did Jesus show? You know, when he was at the temple, was it anger? Was it anxiety? Was it depression or lust? You know, you could we could do that game. But I think that is amazing. He's in the temple and he sees these money changers and he knows that this is the house of God. This is the place where he is literally trying to make sure that this is a place of worship of integrity, of authenticity where people are bringing themselves to the Lord. And in seeing money changers making this house a den of thieves as he calls it, you know, here's a positive anger related, righteous anger related reaction. That's a form of anger. He was righteously angry that they were doing something against the call of God for the place of worship. Now an example of negative anger, which was really illustrated as frustration was Moses. Here's Moses, you know, striking the rock for water because in that moment, he's so tired. He's, you know, and then led the people from from from Egypt. He's taking care of him. He's supporting him. He's trying to follow God. And here they are. I'm thirsty Moses. You know, where where's the food at Moses? You didn't brought us from a land that had plenty of milk and honey. And now we're out here in the desert, tired. And here's numbers 20. He's he's frustrated because of all the things. So he strikes the rock twice actually. And here's water from out out of his frustration. And all that's that's an example of anger. You know, we can look at anxiety too, right? You know, here's here's a Elijah, you know, in a place of of anxiety and just he's he's in fear, you know, of trying to navigate a relationship with, you know, what's going on with Jesu book is Jesu book is just after she's sent a dog. She's sending her guards. This is in first Kings 19. And and he's anxious, you know, and also he ends up walking in a level of depression. You know, where God has to provide some support for him and send angels to him at at a particular moment. You know, and so out of worry, he does things that, you know, can cause himself to not want to actually do anything, which also then led to a aspect of depression for him. Whereas Jonah, and I say this is positive anxiety because again, we said at the beginning, as Kelly mentioned, you can have positive and negative sides of emotion. Jonah, we all know is, is completely disobedient. He's like, I am not going to ninn of a, I will not go help that people turn to God. I'm jumping on the ship. I'm getting out of here. He's hauling, he's hauling out of here. And in this moment, Jonah, you know, through his own anxiety is in, now ends up in a will because the people cast them off the ship to throw lots and finding out that Jonah is the guy that's caused all this shipwreck, you know, where the ship in the direction they're going. And in that moment, his own worry, his own anxiety actually led him to prayer and a desire to obey God. So that is positive anxiety in the opposite direction. We're now out of his worry, out of his desire to go about doing things a different way. He submits to God and says, Lord, I can't do this without you. You want me to do it. I'm going to And there's so many countless examples. You know, there's David crying over Saul chasing them. That's a story of depression. There's, you know, Solomon, who's navigating, you know, an emotion that he has to be in a, in a have relationship with, with, I think it was the Queen of Sheba. You know, it's about the song of Solomon. And then obviously there's the example of Amnon, who was a son of David, King David, but also King David had a daughter whose name was Samar, the sister of Absalom, and how his desire of lust led to, you know, assault. And that's the second statement of 13. So there's so many examples for us to see of God and this man and women in the Bible and how they navigated these emotional reactions. That's so awesome, Samuel, how you clearly put that out because you are right. I mean, and I like that, you know, hey, let's play a game. Let's, you know, is it anxiety, less depression or anxiety, and in the Bible as you're reading through the stories. So let's, let's now do an overview of these four and then we're going to look at each one kind of in a specific and deeper way to help people navigate to try to figure out, where do I struggle? How do I struggle? So on some level with these four, as I mentioned, these are like very key reasons why people raised their hands and say, yeah, I think I need to get counseling. I'm really struggling with depression of late. Yeah. Or I've really been struggling with anxiety of late. And so the first thing that I always tell people is, A, this is normal and natural of the human experience to struggle in some of these. So the other part of this too that is helpful is usually with most people, there's two that are very dominant and two that you really don't struggle with. And it's really important, again, to figure out what are the two that I struggle with. And again, another important thing that I want people to understand when I'm working with them is these four are all positive and negative. So I want to walk you through that. So depression can be positive if you've had a tragedy that happened in your life. For example, a couple years ago, my mom passed away suddenly. And I don't really struggle with depression, but for about three months, I really struggled with depression. And that was healthy. I needed to grieve the lesson of my mom. If you come to me and said, "Hey, Kelly, how you doing with the loss of your mom?" And I'm be like, "Oh, I'm fine. You should be concerned about me." With anxiety, if I'm walking through an area that I'm not familiar with and it's midnight, I would hope that you would be a little anxious because what that anxiety does, it helps you to be unguarded. Then, lust. A lot of people might be, "Well, how can lust be a positive thing?" Well, basically what lust means, which we'll talk about a little bit more deeply, deeper in a little bit here, lust is just a deep sexual desire. That's all that lust is. And now it's all dependent on where you're putting that desire. Is it with yourself? Then that's positive. And again, you brought up a great point, Samuel, the song of songs is a very erotic book, especially what all the words really mean. And so that, again, the Bible is so cool in giving us a picture of even how lust, sexual desire for someone can be positive. And then, finally, anger can be positive. We're going to look at anger pretty deeply today because on some level, everybody struggles with anger. But anger can be positive. And again, you gave that great example of Jesus in the temple. But when something isn't going right and should be going right, whatever that means, you maybe should be angry about that. And again, often when I'm working with people who are struggling with anger, often I think people think anger is always sin. And that's just not true. How can that happen? Kelly, that may be like just a stop point for our listeners. They may be like, well, I've always been taught that anger was a sin. It's like the Bible says, don't let them, don't let, you know, don't go to bed being angry. And so we try to work through and put ourselves through all types of thinking, emotional reactions to not be angry. And then we still go to bed angry at our spouse or at the person that we might have interacted with. How can anger not be sin? Well, again, I think you pointed it out with the life of Jesus. I mean, just go read. Go read the gospel. Just go read one gospel and read it with a highlighter. And write out every time Jesus was angry. Jesus was often angry because he saw inconsistencies and he saw wrongdoing. Anger is very much connected to justice. When there is injustice, you should be angry. And obviously go beyond your anger and literally do something about it. So yeah, that's so good. I, you know, every time I listen to you talk, number one, I appreciate it. But then, you know, I hear and I learn something different and new because I think these things that we're talking about with these chief struggles, you know, we know that they do follow our life for a long span of time. Sometimes we, as you mentioned, we always will be working on one of them. It seems like it's something that I guess you said Satan wants us to kind of struggle with that we want to, he really wants to destroy us in. You know, we struggle with the pride of life. We struggle with the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh. And in those things, it's like God, like what do we do to navigate them? Will I always have to deal with this? But here's the thing that I think is so important and this is going to kind of go into my first kind of just thought process about anxiety is that God doesn't want us whether you're married, you're single, no matter what state you're in. God doesn't want us to navigate anything by ourselves. He's like, I sent the Holy Spirit to you for a reason. I sent him to guide you, to lead you. He already says that his words are lampened to our feet and a lightened to our path. And in those moments, it's almost like even if you have a chief struggle, even if you have a thing that wants to take you out, know that I am present. I am there to support you and help you. And if you lean on me, it will help you and guide you in regards to the thing that you may deal with. Yes, potentially for the rest of your life. I guess what? It doesn't have to overtake you. And so I think that is so important, Kelly. It's so important. And I think of anxiety. An anxiety is kind of our first point, right? The National Institute of Mental Health defines anxiety as an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, physical changes like, for example, increased blood pressure. In our profession of being therapists, on the other side of what we do, people with anxiety disorders, they usually have, in complain about, man, these intrusive, reoccurring thoughts and concerns that keep on happening. And in often cases, anxiety, what is it? It's worried. And when you're worried about something, what do you do? You try to avoid it. And like, I don't want to deal with this today. I don't want to get up and know that I have a boss that has said something to me and it's going to irritate me. So when I get up, I may call it. Or when I get up, I may go to work and do everything I can to not see my boss because I'm worried about certain situations or an outcome of something. You know, apply this to marriage. You know, someone, someone, add a very uncomfortable conversation with your spouse. Right? So you go to bed, you have all these reoccurring thoughts, you may be struggling to go to sleep, you might have a nightmare or something's going on and then you get up, your spouse's cooking breakfast, you know, they may be even trying to what we do. It's called level to playing field. Well, for whatever reason, you may be stuck in feeling like very anxious that, I got to go deal with this person and that feeling of tension or that thought is something that you may navigate. But here's the point. In when you're trying to navigate deal with anxiety, it's so important that you again, don't do it without the Lord doing something without the Lord. Guess what? The definition of doing things without the Lord is pride. And Matthew 6, 27 to 34 gives us an example of things that we don't and shouldn't have to worry about. He talks about the lilies of the field. Don't they take care of themselves, even though they toil in the wind, they maybe swept away one day and and and gone the next, you know, but doesn't God still dress them, doesn't God still take care of them, doesn't God. prepare you for moments with your spouse when you feel angry, you know, anxious, worried, feel tense the next day and you're looking at your spouse and you're trying to figure out what you're going to say in your heads and based on the last situation, doesn't God still provide protection support for you knowing that you don't have to sit there and be tense about something that's coming. He says, it is worried. Don't even worry about the next day. In fact, the best thing you can do to prepare is pray. That's a good Samuel. And when we just pray, Kelly, it's like, man, praying, casting our cares on the Lord in those moments when we're feeling so anxious and tense about things, says, you know what, I can't do this alone, God. I can't do this by myself. I don't have to do this by myself. And so instead of attempting to control things and how someone could potentially respond to us, we're going to walk in a place of peace. If that God provides perfect peace and in that perfect peace, I know that, man, Lord, I can't control how my husband or how my wife is going to respond in this particular moment. And I may feel a little anxious about something intense about another thing, but in that moment I'm going to trust in the Lord. That's probably three, five and six. I'm going to trust in him and lean on him and believe that he's going to help and guide me in my conversation and how I interact and in my relationships. So I don't have to be anxious. That's how you navigate. That's so good, Samuel. So the next one is lust. I'm going to talk a little bit about that. Obviously, lust is very prevalent in our society. We see it sadly in a lot of negative ways. And again, I just want to reiterate, lust is very strong sexual desire. It's not just strong sexual desire. It's very strong sexual desire, as the dictionary describes it. But the negative of it is on some level when you're lusting, sexually lusting, because you can also lust after things. But here we're predominantly talking about lusting after a person. And basically with that type of lust, you're basically saying, I want that person, even though I don't have the right to have that person. And obviously because of porn and other issues, lust can destroy your life. It destroys intimacy. It can destroy your family. I've worked with people where there's been illegal activity. And so it has a legal consequence in your life. And basically, I like how you mentioned that anxiety, and I'm just going to say it again, anxiety is the person basically saying, God has left me alone and is not going to protect me. Yeah. Lust is basically saying, God's not going to give me a meaningful and intimate relationship. There's always a negative to that. And of course, the opposite of lust is love and commitment. And one other thing I want to say about this Samuel that I think is really important, that we really just emphasize with people of the four, you have two that you're going to struggle with. But there's going to be one that is going to follow you the rest of your life. You can never, ever take your eyes off of it. In fact, you always have to be purposeful in attacking it and becoming more healthy in that area in your thinking first and foremost. And I want to just go over one other thing that I think is important, which I forgot to talk about earlier. And that is there's a cycle to these three, thinking, feeling, behaving. And what I'm going to describe right now works really well with lust. It works well with all of them, but it works incredibly well with lust. And that is, if you notice you're in a negative cycle of thinking and in your feeling strong feelings of lust or depression or whatever, and then you begin acting that out, whatever that means for you. And then that continues to you that negative thinking and that continues the negative feeling. And it continues the negative behavior. There's only one way out. Once you enter a negative cycle, you can't change your thinking, typically. If you can change your thinking, that tells you you're not in a negative cycle or a destructive, maybe a better word is, would be a destructive cycle. You can't change your feelings either. If you can't change your thinking, you're definitely not going to be able to change your feelings. So what I always teach people is that the only thing that you can change is you can change your behavior. And what that means often with all four of these, it means you have to change your environment. So for example, I have worked a lot with men who have sexual addiction. And when they recognize their inner destructive cycle, what I always tell them, "Dude, when you're in that cycle, you've got to change your environment." For example, a guy will recognize that he's in that cycle. He's at home. And he's like, "I think I'm going to go online and do some Google searches. Bad idea, right?" What he needs to do is he needs to get out of Dodge and he needs to get out of his apartment. He needs to change his environment. And that works the same for the other three as well. So for example, with depression, it means it's the person who's like, "I just want to stay in bed." Yeah. Change your environment. Go for a walk. It's the person who's really anxious. Again, change your environment. It works really well. And I'll talk a lot more about this with anger. But anger, often when you're working with people who struggle with anger, you're telling them to take a time out when they get angry. And again, all that that is is that's a change of environment. I'm really angry at my kid right now. I'm going to say something really hurtful, but I'm going to take a time out. I'm going to go in the other room. I'm going to cool down and then I'm going to come back to the conversation. That is so good. You know what Kelly, that is so good. And what that does for me, personally, again, we talk about through self-disclosure, some of the interactions that we have. Personally, and also that we have with our clients. But for me, that confirms something that often cases share of my clients. And I say, "Hey, you know what? I say two words. I say, "We have conditions and we have an identity." And often cases what people do is people identify themselves based off of a condition. I am depressed. Oh, okay. So you are depressed. I am lustful. Okay. So that's who you believe you are. Or is that conditional? Is that a condition? Is that an environment? Is that the context of which you've made in a sense of lordship over your life? That way you will always submit for it. No condition is a condition. And we have to navigate experiences and things. Do that, lens. So that way we learn to walk out of identifying with the thing and then begin to continually work on, "Okay, progressively working through those things that we end up making a part of our identity." And I think that is just an amazing aspect that you talked about, that environmental piece. Especially if you are like, "Man, I can't stop thinking. I can't stop feeling. I can't stop behaving. We will change. Let's change the way that you do things that are routine and let's change the environment that you are continually exposed and putting yourself in that because those are conditions." So that's really good, Kelly. I like what you said, Samuel. That's so helpful about the condition part. That's really helpful. I'm going to sit. Yeah. Yeah. So, oh, we have another one. So depression. That's so depression is the next category that we'll deal with. And in depression, that's, again, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, that is defined as a constant feeling or emotion of sadness and/or a loss of interest, which typically stops your normal activities. So you may be used to being more social or going out and having fun with your spouse and some way shape or form. Some event occurs, something happens. Maybe someone passes away. Maybe you just feel just kind of yucky and out and I feel like going out and more for week to week, three weeks at a time. And also it turns into a month or so. That is conditionally expressed and defined as depression because now you've lost interest in doing normal activities. It really severely impacts how you feel, you think, and then how you do your behaviors, such as sleeping, eating and working. And I think that when sometimes when we're navigating depression and marriage specifically, there may be this aspect where, man, well, that person used to serve me a certain way, but now they don't serve me. meaning, but they, and I was used to having dinner every single night and all of a sudden something just changed. My wife just changed, right? That's something we commonly hear. And she just, that's the same person. You know, or let's just say you were out and about and join, meeting with couples, doing small groups, all those types of things. All of a sudden the couple just dropped out. And you're like, man, what happened to them? And then you talk to them and maybe they're low in voice, low in mood, low in energy. I think they're getting ready to have a divorce. Well, maybe they're just depressed because of some event that happened. And I think that we have to navigate those things and understanding all these are signs of depression within individually and then also how that may impact the marriage in regards to activities or things that you were used to doing. In often cases also can show up and how we treat our spouse. For example, you know, I remember the story Kelly, a particular person. Just called him by the name of Ricky Sue, you know, I like using old Southern names. That's how you know Ricky Sue Ricky Sue, you know, Charlie, you know, that's what I like using when I talk about certain situations. Let's use Ricky Sue for example. And I remember the story of this particular person. They were out and about, always enjoying time with their spouse and they would go on dates, at least every other week. They were just enjoying that they were married for about four or five years. After those four or five years, they had a kid. They ended up moving and moving to another state. They had to get used to going to another church and relationship with all those people that are at a new church. So the spouse, you know, the woman, she was pretty much, you know, not having it. She was like, man, I've got to turn all my energy and now creating new relationships, going to the church, going and having friendships with people. I have no idea who they are. And in this moment, you know, what it up happening is the husband would come home often cases dealing with, you know, the day and enjoying his day from work. You know, they would go on church on Sunday together and join a service, Wednesday service. But then he noticed his spouse was like, she was just not, you know, hearing when he would talk to her. He would mention things about the game, he would mention things about, you know, what was going on with the kids and she would not respond as she used to. And he noticed this lack of energy. So in counseling, you know, he asked me to say, I mean, like, my wife is not the same person. She's not even there. And she doesn't even notice it. And she was getting really defensive. She was like, you know what, my husband, Charlie Joe, you know, he doesn't care about how I feel about this whole move and about being in a new environment. And the kids are suffering too. He thinks the kids are excited. The kids are suffering too. And so they had this moment where they didn't understand that the wife was dealing and navigating depression from all the loss that she had endured in her life. And in that loss, you know, there began to be a lack of desire to do certain things also for the husband because the husband wasn't doing a term that we call turning toward. She wasn't, you know, he wasn't even paying attention to the signs that his wife was regressing in the way that she was feeling and regressing in the way that she was thinking about their current context and environment. And when you have those things that are happening sometimes, you know, if the spouse, the wife doesn't feel like you're actually paying attention to her. Maybe she's also expressing that you don't love her in the way. And when you know, when if she's potentially feeling that you don't love her as a husband, you know, and this is kind of the conversation we were having, I said, I wonder how she feels about this whole direction that you felt like God was telling you to make this move. I wonder how she feels about God. And in depression, what ends up happening is at the root of depression, you know, there's this expression that, well, depending on who's leading my life, let's just say God, for example, maybe that aspect of depression can be reflected in saying that God may not love me or that he's not concerned about how I feel. And if there's this expression that man, the leader of my life doesn't understand me or doesn't understand how to love me the right man or doesn't or isn't concerned about me. There's this aspect where in depression that that that that layer of change that has to happen is a redirect and a reframe. Well, yes, God does love you. Yes, God does care about how you're feeling, how you're navigating the stressors of your life, how you're feeling in regards to now regressing in the way that you used to live your life based off of condition or based off of an event happening. And that's a constant aspect of not necessarily pushing the person to do something different as much as it is as addressing, okay, it's not that God doesn't love you. It may be the fact that things have changed and you haven't been able to navigate the adjustments needed where the triggers in regards to the events that have happened in your life. And in working through those things, often cases, what we have to do, you know, whether you're a spouse, whether you're a therapist, whether you're a pastor, talking to someone, is help that person understand the the preeminent piece of hope and also the preeminent piece of gratefulness because that is the opposite of depression. That's the opposite of, okay, yes, things don't seem to say, yes, things you may feel down and out, yes, things may not be, you know, going as you want them, you could use COVID, for example, COVID just wiped out everything. I'm depressed. Okay. Well, guess what? There's a lot of people that passed away, but are used to live. That's hope. You know, there's a lot of things that have changed, but guess what, there's still opportunity to do things creatively and new that are a part of your life. The fact that we still have breath, that's hope. And then that we can be grateful to the place that know that God is there and He has not left us. He has not forsaken us and He keeps us. And I think that that is the power of hope and gratefulness as a driving force to redirect people and reframe people from thinking that, man, it's just the aspect of depression. There's no reason to get out and do anything. No, there is a reason. And number one, God is that reason. He's giving you life. He's giving you breath and He's giving you the ability to dream and hope and do the things that He's called you and assigned you to do. I think that's important piece of understanding how to present, also how to go against that. So good, Samuel. So good. You know, I heard a quote last week. I think it was Pope Francis who said it. Now, I'm not going to get the quote right, but I'm going to be using it a lot because when I heard it, I'm like, oh my gosh, is that truth? And he said, I think this is how it went. The last hundred years for the church has been the ministry of the mouth. And for the next hundred years, the church is going to be the ministry of the ear. I think with all the tie into all of this is to help somebody with all four of these different struggles, you need to have a really good ear and you really need to be a good listener and that story that you shared really illustrated that. So the last one is anger. Anger. Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism. So one of the starting places that I start with people is that everybody gets angry, everybody. But some people, it's a key struggle. And this one is really important because it really helps people navigate their feelings and their challenges within relationships. They're most intimate relationships. In particular, with their spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or their kids or their mom or dad or whoever. So number one, everybody gets angry and again, remember anger can be a positive emotion and it can be negative. There's two words in the Bible and I love going over this with clients because it really opens up a new world for them to think about their anger and the two words are or gay and store gay. They're Greek words for anger and it's really easy to remember because or gay is okay. Or gay is anger. So you can hear in the word what store gay is. It's a person who is storing their anger. So now let's walk through or gay because that's the good anger and that's what you want to do with it. Number one, you always want to be mindful of your feelings and emotions. So if you're angry at somebody, call it out within yourself. Yeah. Call a spade a spade if you're angry at your spouse say, you know what, I'm really angry at my spouse right now for whatever. And with or gay, healthy anger, you only have two options with it. You either need to forgive it or you need to express it. And healthy aspects of angry anger is number one, I recognize I'm angry. Number two, I've got actually I've got three choices. I can express it. I can forgive it or I can store it in remote. Remember, storing is really bad because when you store anger, it will either hurt you or it will hurt others. One manifestation of stored anger, for example, is rage. If you lost it one time and you exploded at a person and you're screaming at them, that my friend is rage and that is store gay. Usually, but with that, to maybe kind of walk people through that, so you get angry at your spouse and you recognize that you're angry at them and you decide, "You know what, I think I'm going to forgive it." My spouse has had a really rough week and he hears she has been on edge and they snapped at me this morning and I'm going to forgive it. Forgiving it is forgetting it. Forgiving and forgetting are very tied together, especially in terms of a Christian ethic. Like Jesus does not remember my sins. He forgets them. He forgave them and he forgets them. We need to put that in practice in our own lives. Now, the way you figure out if you express it one way is if it's a consistent pattern of behavior that really frustrates you. That tells you that you need to sit down with your spouse and have a significant conversation. You might want to go back and listen to our podcast about conflict resolution because in there, we, for example, talk about active listening and some other tools that you can use to have a crucial, difficult conversation with your spouse, that you actually might be a little bit scared to have. That is normal and natural. When it comes to anger, at the end of the day, it's us saying, "God is not going to bring about justice for me." With that, the opposite of anger would be joy or gratefulness. Again, I think it's really important for people to monitor. I'm upset. What do I need to do? Do I need to forgive it? If you do forgive it, sometimes I encourage people to audibly forgive it. Maybe that can even turn into a prayer for you. "Lord, I'm really upset at my husband right now or my wife. We've had a bad day or a bad week. They were quite harsh with me this morning, but I'm going to forgive it and let it go and try to create a reconnection with my spouse." So good. So good, Kelly. This is one of my favorite podcasts already because I think that people navigate and have to deal with these pieces so uniquely and always know how to decline. Again, we started at the top of this saying, "In many cases, it's the men that don't know how to define how they feel about things." But there's probably women too. In that understanding how you feel about your emotion, how that thin thing comes out, for example, anger and what that means is so key to that. Is there anything that you wanted to leave us with in regards to anger? No, I think that what I said is mostly, again, you mentioned about men not being able to navigate through emotions. I really think women have just a difficult time, but they do it in a different way. I had a client last night and we actually talked about this topic and one of the things that was really helpful for her and she had never done this at all in her life. And that was, I said to her, "Well, you're angry at your husband." And she was kind of like, "Well, I don't really get angry." I'm like, "Well, you're angry." And then it is I walked her through what I just explained about how to navigate your anger. And I think that was a real breaking point for her to realize that anger is not always seen, anger can be healthy and natural and normal. Like in this instance, she should have been angry at her husband. He was taking her for granted. And that is something to be angry about. And so, yeah, I love this topic. I've shared this topic a lot with people and it's been one of the more helpful topics when working with people. So good. So good. So listeners, as we're closing out today, I think it's so important that if you've not navigated this or dealt with this before, have and take some time with your significant other or if you're single, work through these emotions. You can get in contact with us to learn more about these subjects at [email protected] and about emailing us there and or just check out our website underneath atobabel.org. And I think that it's just important again to work through these pieces of emotion and our thoughts and our behaviors. And again, I think it's so crucial that if we're mindful of our thinking, especially as it applies to our possible struggles with anxiety, depression or anger, that things can change. Things can be different if we work through them. I think it's important to know that when we struggle with these things, that we have to be purposeful about going after them in our life and getting better so that way they don't fall out of our lives. So again, if these things have been impactful, feel free to leave us a comment or subscribe to our podcast. We'll have information in our show notes that are underneath our podcast and again, for Kelly and Samuel, this has been together and we hope to see you next couple weeks. Thanks for listening to Together. We hope that you've learned a thing or two. If you find the podcast helpful, please subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. If you'd like more information on Aida Bible Church and its ministries or someone to pray or dialogue with about your marriage, email us at [email protected].