Prefer to listen? Listen to the full episode here.
Do you ever feel like your spouse isn’t emotionally present?
This week, Juli and guest Gary Thomas dive into the often-overlooked side of sexual intimacy: emotional connection in marriage. They unpack three building blocks of emotional intimacy—emotional availability, sensitive responsiveness, and trust. From understanding male and female brain chemistry to tips on daily connection habits, this conversation gives you tangible ways to create a stronger, healthier marriage.
Juli (00:00.046)
Hey, friend, it’s Juli. Tuesday of this week is Giving Tuesday, and every dollar that you give to Authentic Intimacy is going to be matched up to $70,000. So each week, Java with Juli reaches more than 10,000 men and women providing ad-free and honest conversations with biblical answers to questions about God and sexuality.
One Apple Podcast listener recently wrote, this was a good place for me to start learning and understanding what God wants from my sexuality. It helps me make sense of what’s in the Bible, but it also helps break down the present day struggles. I don’t feel alone when I’m listening. And that is certainly my heart for every Java with Juli Listener. Will you help us continue to help others make sense of God and sexuality? Give today and you’ll double your impact at AuthenticIntimacy.com slash give.
Gary
It doesn’t matter what your spouse is saying as much as who is saying it. If I don’t value what she’s saying, it’s going to read that I don’t value you. Because if it matters to her, it’s got to start mattering a little bit to me.
Juli
Well, hey friends, welcome to another episode of Java with Juli. This podcast is an outreach of Authentic Intimacy, which is a ministry helping people make sense of God and sexuality. And you know that we talk a lot about sexual intimacy on this podcast. In fact, we recently did a listener survey and about 75% of you wanted us to talk about sexual intimacy even more. And so we’ll continue to do that, but, but there’s another part of sexual intimacy, another side of this, which is really the emotional connection that a husband and wife have that often we don’t get to. And a lot of you ask questions about that. I think stereotypically the woman is asking, hey, my husband won’t connect with me. He doesn’t want to talk. He just wants to connect through sex. How do I get him interested in emotional intimacy? And how do I communicate to him the importance of that in our marriage? And so that’s where we’re headed today.
Juli (02:14.074)
And I’m not going to tackle this one by myself. I have asked my very good friend, Gary Thomas, to come and unpack this for me. Gary, this is your sixth time on Java with Juli.
Gary
Is it really?
Juli
Yeah. So, yeah. know. our audience is very familiar with you, your work, your books, including the iconic Sacred Marriage and so many other books you’ve written, Sacred Search and…so many books that have been helpful in the marriage and family space and even in the sexuality space. So thank you so much for your willingness to hop on this call and help us navigate an issue that I think frustrates a lot of women. I don’t know if it’s frustrating for men, maybe that conversation where a woman’s like, why can’t you connect to me? So do you see this in your work that this is a disconnect for men and women?
Gary
Yeah. Well, Juli, I might actually have a, I can’t say a unique perspective, but an uncommon one in this. When you told me what you wanted to talk about emotionally connecting and why is wanting to help husbands do that? I had to make a call to my wife and say, hey, here’s what the topic is about. And she laughed and I knew why she was laughing, but I asked her, why are you laughing? Just because you know, that’s your strength and my weakness. We’re kind of reverse.
Looking back, I think this is really one of the greatest gifts God gave me because I can kind of understand what a lot of women feel because I have that same dynamic in my marriage. And so I just want every wife and husband to know I talked over with Lisa everything that I’m going to say here.
Juli
Good
Gary
I would never share anything that she doesn’t say, yeah, okay. She’s really good about that. She loves couples. She wants to see them minister to. We learned this early on the dynamic in our marriage, even though you’re right, the stereotype is that I hear 80 to 90 % of the time, how do get my husband to be more emotionally connected? With Lisa and I, it was often, how do I help her become more emotionally connected in our marriage? And I think there were clues when we were dating. I can look back now. I didn’t know then. I was 22 when we got married. I can look back now and say from her family of origin, oh OK, this is what you’re going to deal with. But what do we know when we’re 22 and just getting married?
Juli (04:34.048)
Right. And especially when we haven’t read the Sacred Search, you know, or the nine conversations that you have to have before you say I do, which are books that you’ve written. So you’ve learned a thing or two.
Gary
But, you know, in a sense, I’m glad I didn’t because it’s been a wonderful 41 years. I cherish and adore that woman and grateful for the three kids and two grandkids we have, so.
Juli
Absolutely, yeah, and I’m glad that you’ll be sharing from the perspective of the spouse who wants more emotional intimacy. And I have to say, I’m married to a man––you know Mike very well––Gary. He is probably more emotionally connective than I am. Like that’s something I always loved about him. He loves to talk, he’ll tell you how he feels about things. I don’t have to drag things out of him. He probably feels that way about me, so our marriage may be a little bit more reversed in this as well.
Juli
So why don’t we just jump in by saying, like, how do we even define emotional connection or intimacy? You know, Gary, when we talk about sexual intimacy or sexual connection, everybody knows what that is because it’s physical. But if you have a husband or wife saying, just want you to be more emotionally available to me or I don’t feel emotionally connected, what does that even mean?
Gary (05:56.846)
Okay, let me say something before that that I just learned with Lisa and you kind of hinted at with Mike. If you feel like your spouse doesn’t connect emotionally as well as you do, I found one of the first things is don’t let it be that they feel broken because of that. We are who we are. God created us who we are. Our family that of origin can have a huge impact on that. I think in Lisa’s case, that is certainly a major factor and I found that if you want your spouse to eventually emotionally connect with you on a deeper level, implying or making them feel like they’re broken and you’re trying to fix them is about the worst path to get there. So I think it’s a good aim. I think the satisfaction of a marriage is largely dependent on emotional connection and I would describe it three ways and I’m leaning on, you know, Dr. Sharon May?
She wrote a book with her dad, Dr. Archibald Hart, called Safe Haven Marriage. It was really instrumental for me in trying to understand how do we emotionally connect. And what I like is they posit three things that are practical, that we can think about, that we can learn, and that we can talk about. And if these three things are missing, the marriage is much more susceptible to an affair. But you’re saying even if an affair has happened, building these three things are like building blocks to get back to emotional connection after hurt has passed.
Gary
So the three things are this, emotional availability, sensitive responsiveness, and trust.
Gary
Emotional availability is simply you create emotional space in your life for your partner’s hurts, fears, passions, failures, whatnot. And for me, where I would struggle with this is I can get so busy focused on deadlines.
It’s possible to get so focused on the kids or a vocation or a hobby or how your team is doing that when your spouse starts to unload and I don’t mean that in a negative way, starts to share, would be a better way of putting it. If we’re too busy, if we haven’t made emotional space in our heart for our spouse, they’re going to feel like a bother. Okay, I got to listen to this, but give me the reader’s digest version. You know, I want to get on it.
Gary (08:22.286)
And so part of marriage I realize is creating emotional space and headspace so that I’m not overly tired and I can be emotionally available for my spouse I can make time because a lot of times our spouses hurts and fears, they don’t come at a convenient time. It’s often right when we’ve got something else happening. I know as a young husband, it was often when it was in two minutes left in a game that I was really excited about so the spouse isn’t gonna time it but part of marriage is making yourself emotionally available. Sensitive responsiveness means that when something begins to be shared, the first thing you say is so crucial. Now, let me go back for a second. While wives are hearing this, they’re saying, yes, this is what I want my husband to do. And I would go back to Peter who said to wives, model to your husbands what you want.
Juli
Yeah.
Gary (09:17.814)
Okay, because wives can struggle with sensitive responsiveness as well as husbands. So sensitive responsiveness is my spouse shares something. It could be a hurt, a frustration, a concern, a hope, a dream. The first thing I say is going to let her know whether I’m there for her, whether I’m trying to solve it. If you’re trying to solve it as a guy, she’s thinking, he doesn’t want to walk this journey with me. He wants to solve it. So I’m not burdening him with it, but I kind of want him to walk with this, you know, walk with me on this. And so for me, it’s really helpful to know, okay, she’s sharing, she’s making a bid. How can I respond in a sensitive way? Now, here’s some ways that John Gottman says is not emotionally sensitive. And he uses wives here. Of course, husbands can respond this way. But I think it’s helpful since we’re talking about that. Gottman warns about what he calls harsh startups.
When the wife, though it’s not always the wife, responds to the husband’s withdrawal, which is frustration women often have, by beginning the conversation in a harsh manner with words that are immediate, hot, loud, intense, and sharp. So here’s some examples. You never listen to me. You prioritize everything but me. You never pay attention to me. Those are all valid feelings. But if you respond that way, it’s what he calls a harsh response that is gonna shut your spouse down.
Juli
Yeah, and I might even say those aren’t valid feelings because there’s no feelings in those statements. You know, they’re accusations, but the wife never says, I feel sad because I don’t feel like you make time for me. So, yeah, I mean, I just say it that way because I think that’s what we want to pivot to is getting to the valid feeling, not the accusation.
Gary (11:17.206)
Because if she says, you never listen to me, he’s going to think of the one time that he did. And then the argument becomes about something else.
Juli
Or it becomes his problem. He’s defensive instead of her owning her feeling. So you know, like, yeah. So anyway, sorry for interrupting you, but yeah.
Gary
And then the third thing, so you’ve got emotional availability, sensitive responsiveness, and the third thing is trust. And that kind of caught me by surprise. And by trust, he’s not talking about sexual fidelity, although of course, that’s a part of it, that you’re not doing something that your partner would feel betrayed by. But it’s, hey, I said I would pick up the dry cleaning. I picked it up. I said I’m gonna be there by this amount of time. I’m gonna be there so that you’re not late. It’s just you can’t feel intimate with someone that you can’t trust.
What’s the point of a conversation if you decide on something and you agree on something and they don’t come through? I don’t know that couples are quite aware of how important trust is, how for intimacy trust is really the foundation. And it’s hard to build intimacy if trust has been broken, and trust is built up by just a lot of regular little things that ultimately I can trust this person. If they say they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it. And if you can’t, then you call your spouse and say, hey, I said I was going to do this. Here’s why can’t. That’s not breaking trust. It’s not valuing what you’ve told your spouse would do so that it slips your mind or you just get too busy and don’t buy.
Juli (12:59.062)
Right. Okay. Yeah. Hey, that’s a great outline. I’d like to walk through a few of those things that you already said. One of them, the first one is to be available and use the example, like for your spouse to share frustration, to share something that’s going wrong. But I would even say to be available every day for the mundane stuff. You know, a lot of, a lot of the disconnection is you go through days without any kind of conversation that’s meaningful. And let’s say a spouse is just wanting to say, here’s what happened to me today, I got caught in traffic or I had this great conversation with a coworker. And so it’s not always just when there’s a crisis or there’s a heavy thing to share. It’s that daily connectedness. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Gary
It does, and I would say what helps me is that it doesn’t matter what your spouse is saying as much as who is saying it. If I don’t value what she’s saying, it’s going to read that I don’t value you because if it matters to her, it’s got to start mattering a little bit to me. And you mentioned little things. If I could read another quote from Heart and May, I think it really helped wives understand how emotional disconnection creeps up to these little things. They say this, “emotional disconnection doesn’t require an emotional earthquake. Just pile on the critical comments, insensitive remarks and irritating acts, whether intentional or unintentional, and you can break your partner’s heart. Not much more than a flat tone to hello from your spouse after you’ve waited all day to see him, a kiss that did not seem warm, a hand touched, then quickly pulled away, unwillingness to stop for a hug, failure to help get the kids up and ready in time for school, the thoughtlessness of not putting the dirty dishes in the sink, clothes left in the hallway, or not having time to listen when a listening ear is desperately needed. All these can do deep damage one bit at a time.”
Juli (15:15.372)
Wow. Yeah. And all of those say, I don’t see you. You know, I mean, even the little thing like not putting a dirty dish in the sink or something like that. A spouse can take that as you don’t even see that if you don’t put it in in the sink, then I have to clean up after you. So it’s this feeling of I’m not seen, I’m not valued.
And Gary, one of the, I think, best pieces of advice that I’ve ever heard related to some of this, is to be intentional about couples time. Like we talk about date nights and I think that’s huge, but a lot of marriage therapists is probably advice that you’ve given is just have like 10 minutes a day of what you might call couch time, where it’s just scheduled to look each other in the eye, each of you share for five minutes. How are you? know, what’s going on with your heart? What’s something that happened today that you want to share with me about? Because in the busyness of kids and family and schedules, a well-meaning couple can go weeks without that kind of intentional connection.
Gary
It’s shocking. Yeah.
Juli
Yeah. Yeah.
Gary
And one caveat I’d give to the wives who feel like their husbands aren’t emotionally connecting very well is if you have that time or it’s a time out and it’s difficult for him to emotionally connect, you got to give him time to process his emotions differently. I’ve learned with Lisa, I used to be frustrated with this early on in our marriage. I would share something and she wouldn’t know how she felt. And if I pestered her, well, what do you think or how do you feel?
It just didn’t help and it made her feel worse. Well, I’m the wife I’m supposed to know. I’m the one that should be initiating this, not you. And I found that you’re just spinning your wheels. And so you got to know your spouse. And if you share that with them, you’re kind of priming the pump or maybe that morning say, Hey, tonight, if you have a chance, maybe we can talk about this and we can talk later about how to frame that, so it doesn’t feel like he’s broken, but you give somebody time to respond without making them feel broken if they can’t immediately respond. It’s a great way to get somebody to shut down if they feel flooded and you’re expecting more of them and they feel like I’m just disappointing you again. Lisa knows that I know this is how her brain operates. This is how her emotional operating system operates. She just needs time and it might be the next day sometime.
Juli
Well, and there are some people who are maybe like Lisa, more internal processors. I’m more like that. Like I have to think about how what I think and how I feel. I can’t just come up with it in the moment. Like if Mike and I leave a gathering together and he’s like, what do you think? What are your observations? How do you feel? I’m like, I don’t know. You go first. Like I want to hear you talk first. I need space. I need time to process. He’s a verbal processor. But I also think that there’s an element to which, this could be true with Lisa, I don’t know, but I think it’s true with a lot of guys, they just don’t know how to access that part of themselves. And maybe they can learn to be emotionally available for their wife when she shares, but when it comes time for him to share, he’s like, I just don’t have the words, and you could give me all day and I’m not going to come up with the words. I just never grew up thinking about how I feel about something or my brain just doesn’t work that way. Have you found that to be true?
Gary
Yeah, and I made it worse early on in our marriage. I didn’t understand these dynamics. And so when Lisa wouldn’t respond, I would take it personally, or I’d treat it as she’s being apathetic or unfeeling because I didn’t feel the empathy coming back. And that makes her feel worse. And I’ve never been a yeller, but Lisa knows I’m disappointed. Well, now she’s frustrated about something else.
Gary (19:27.432)
So she’s trying to figure out this, but then she’s, oh no. And then there’s this and that’s going to bring up other thoughts. I just have realized how important it is that every spouse has so many strengths and then so many other areas where these are skills that you can grow in. But if you make your spouse feel like they’re lacking in something, it doesn’t help them grow and moves them to shut down.
Juli
Yeah, yeah.
Gary
But that doesn’t mean, can’t work on it. Go ahead….
Juli
No, yeah, I think, you know, again, what if you’re married to somebody who, again, it’s not that they don’t have empathy for what you say. But I talked to so many wives who are like, I just want to know my husband’s heart, and I never feel like I get to see his heart. And I ask him, he gives me one word answers. Everything’s fine. I know it’s not fine.
Juli (20:19.434)
He never tells me how he’s feeling or what he’s thinking. And you know, some people will say, well, he’s not your girlfriend. Like go have those conversations with your girlfriends. But there’s a sense of just emotional disconnect because a woman can’t access her husband’s heart. What would she do in that situation?
Gary
Here’s a tip that you can try. Sometimes, again, as guys, we’re a little bit out of touch with our emotions or we’re embarrassed of our emotions. And so here’s an example in my own life where a situation went at a church where I’m at where I wish it had gone a different direction. I was advocating for something, trying to go somewhere else. I was talking to a counselor a couple of months ago and this came up, but I just mentioned it as neutrally as I could and he knows me really well. He’s an incredibly empathic counselor. He looks at me and he goes, Gary, that broke your heart. I’m like, wow, that’s kind of a strong way to put it. I don’t want to own that. It was Gary, it broke your heart. And I’m looking, yeah, it kind of did. It wasn’t just that I was disappointed. I was, it really hurt me at another level. I would say to wives, if you notice that, try to do what my friend, the counselor did and say, honey, I know you said it’s not a big deal. I think it, I think it broke your heart. I think you felt betrayed or I think you felt really hurt that you were hoping this friend would come through and he’s never called or, you know, you’ve had a terrible medical diagnosis and this person hasn’t reached out… Maybe take a flyer, not as an accusation, but just trying to help evoke it from him. And sometimes if you name it before he does, he might be none of this is foolproof. Okay, because every person is but it might give him permission or at least help evoke from him what he’s really feeling. If you label it, then he’s like, okay, I can own that. That’s true.
Juli (22:28.334)
Right? No, that’s very true. You know, lot of guys, and this can be true for women as well, but a lot of guys grow up with the spoken or unspoken message that you’re not allowed to be sad, you’re not allowed to cry, you know, just rub some dirt in it, you’ll be okay. And so they don’t grow up often with the same emotional mirroring that women get or girls get when we’re growing up where, people were like, are you sad? Come here. You know, so we learn even at a neurological level at an earlier age, most women how to label our feelings. We have more permission often to express our feelings. Sometimes not anger. Like women often aren’t comfortable with expressing anger because girls aren’t supposed to be angry, but boys are, you know?
So I think some of that is understanding that that early learning really has an impact on our relationships today. And I love your suggestion of kind of mirroring what we see in our husbands. Like, boy, I’m not sure if you feel this way, but I’m looking at you, I’m wondering if you’re really devastated by that, or if you feel betrayed by that, or if you’re disappointed. And your husband will tell you, like, he’ll be like, yeah, I kind of am or no, not at all. Actually, I feel angry, you know, so.
Juli
Another way…
Gary
It gives him something to respond to. It will make him feel known. She gets me. Maybe she understands me better than understand myself right now. And that leads to a feeling of emotional connection.
Juli (24:08.866)
Yeah, another way I know I’ve done this in counseling with people who won’t open up as easily is I give them multiple choice. So do you feel more sad or angry or disappointed or even on a scale from one to five, know, how much did that impact you? And so giving multiple choices sometimes can help open the door.
Juli
Yeah. So that second element that you mentioned is our responsiveness, like how we actually react to our spouse when they share something. And you gave some examples from John Gottman of this is not how you want to approach or respond to your spouse. What are some positive ways and how do we think about this in a better manner?
Gary
Well, what I like about this is it is a skill that can be learned and it’s sort of a flag you put in your mind. Okay, if they’re sharing the first thing out of my mouth has to be sensitive. And so here’s the story I asked Lisa if I could share and she said, that’d be fine. I’ve been a lifelong runner. It’s hard for me to imagine my life without running from time I was 16 years old. It helps with weight management. It helps me with stress. I like to get out of the door. It’s just been a part of my life. Well, I tore meniscus in my right knee this past year and it’s really been difficult getting back and one orthopedic surgeon said we can operate on it another one said nah I think we can try to do physical therapy because the rest of the knee looks really good so he shot me full of steroids and I was loving it because those steroids are amazing.
Juli
Yeah.
Gary (25:51.394)
You know my wife, she’s not a fan of drugs, but man, I mean, I was able to run, I was able to work out, but then like clockwork, and I should have known this would happen about two months in, I went for another run and the steroids have worn off and I could hardly walk the next day. I can’t tell you how discouraged I was. I mean, I’m just like, is this over? Is it gone? What can I do?
And so I just shared it with Lisa, how’d it go? And I said, man, I can barely walk going downstairs. I’m wincing at every step. And the first thing she said was, well, you haven’t been doing your physical therapy exercises. Have you? And I, know, immediate, I felt like I want empathy. like, I know this is such a big thing for you, but, here’s what I tell the wives, if it’s reversed and their husband does that, I didn’t say anything right then. Cause I was really hurt and disappointed, partly because it was also true. I’m not a big fan of physical therapy, but I had gone some sessions, but then I wait the next day when I’ve cooled down and Lisa’s heard me talk about these things. So honey, you remember the sensitive responsiveness? She goes, oh yeah. I go, well, when I share something where I’m really hurting and this is your response, that might be an example of what sensitive responsiveness isn’t.
Juli
Mm.
Gary
She kinda goes oh, I can see it. Now I’m not, I’m not, I waited until I wasn’t angry so this wouldn’t be seen as a heavy accusation and in a time where she could receive it and my wife’s probably a lot better than some husbands who might act defensively but she could immediately see, because I have this belief, not a belief, I’m convinced, my wife loves me, she’s committed to me, she wants to grow in every way she could grow as I want to grow to love her.
Gary (27:45.59)
And so she said, OK, that’s helpful. I can realize I need to dial that back. Because she is. All of the health advice, she’s like, Mrs. Fix It. You you need to get on this vitamin. We can take this supplement. You can try this or that. As long as it’s not drugs, she’s going to give it a try. Essential oils, elderberry juice, things like that. But that was an example where she said, Oh OK, let me say, wives, if you do this with your husband, I want to go back to what Gottman said. It’s going to, it could in some cases sound like a critique, and Gottman will sound extreme here, but I think he’s right, especially with the husband. It’s got to be 10 to one. You got to be building them up in 10 ways before you share the one thing that disappoints you. Otherwise it’ll feel like one to 10, one, one critique, know, one compliment and 10 things. That’s just emotionally where we go.
Gary
So if you want to use this, I think you got to dial back on all the other criticisms. If you’re saying, I really want to help us grow in emotional availability, put on the shelf for a while, whether he’s taking out the garbage, whether he’s wiping down the sink, or just you can address those issues. But you got to figure out where you want to focus. And so I really want to work on emotional connection. I want to help them understand this. So I’m going to dial back on those critiques. And we’re going to talk about this and see how it goes. And the reason I say this is I’ve my whole life around guys. I’ve written books with famous guys, athletes. And one of the things that hit me are these professional athletes who wouldn’t take up golf. And I would press some of them. And they said, well, their identity is being a great athlete. And golf can be so difficult. And their attitude is, if I can’t win, I’m not going to play.
Juli
Hmm.
Gary (29:39.648)
And if you make your husband feel like he can’t win at marriage, he’ll stop playing. I’m not saying he should. If I’m his pastor, I’m imploring that he not do that. I’m just saying that’s sort of the default position that you want to avoid pushing him into.
Juli
Wow. Yeah, and I really think that gets to that trust piece. I know you use the example of when you say you’re going to do something, you need to do it. And that’s one kind of trust. But I think what you’re getting at is another kind of emotional trust, that if I share a piece of myself, I have to trust that you’re not going to reject me. And, and…
Gary
And especially with guys, I’m sorry, Juli, I keep over talking to you.
Juli
No, it’s okay.
Gary
Especially with guys confidentiality, they tend to be because we don’t talk with our guy friends like women often talk with their girlfriends. Women don’t often realize the sense of betrayal. If a wife shares something with her mom or her sister or her friend that he isn’t good with, you want to talk about him shutting down and never sharing his stuff again. That’s when the quickest roads to get there. That’s a trust that really matters.
Juli
Yeah, boy, I’ve never heard that before. That’s a good piece. Do guys say that? I mean, will they come to you and say, like my wife, I shared something and she told her her friends or she told her mom.
Gary
That’s not going to happen again. It’s that that’s why before I shared this bit about my knee, I asked Lisa, hey, are you good that I share this because it’s such a clear practical example. Again, she’s wonderful. She’s going to say, OK, but I just think guys tend to be more sensitive about that feeling more betrayed by sharing stuff with friends. Again, not always, but females often just grow up sharing a lot more.
Juli
Yeah.
Gary
And we guys don’t and so we take it as why would you even do that? We just assume they’re not and so when I’m when I’m working with premarital couples that’s one of the things we really emphasize. If you have frustrations who are you comfortable with your spouse talking to? Sometimes they say nobody but me. Others they’ll say and I’m even asking for names because I found that then the fight becomes about what was shared not about the original point of disagreement.
Juli (32:07.734)
Right. And if they can have an agreement upfront that these are safe people for us to share with, then you kind of get that one kind of settled before it becomes an issue, which is really wise. That’s really good advice. I think you know what you’re doing with this. You know, I think men can be emotionally disconnected in that you’ve mentioned this, they try to fix the situation. I think women can kind of create emotional disconnection in that we don’t try to fix the situation, we try to fix the guy. So, and it’s good-hearted. mean, we want, we want to be helpful. We want to help them, but that’s what lends itself to sort of that critical nature or, you know, like, let me tell you how you should say this. And instead of, as you mentioned, it’s gotta be 10 to one. You’ve got to be building them up and encouraging him and choose your conflicts and corrections wisely because none of us can hear too much criticism without wanting to shut down.
Gary
They should read, Finding the hero in your husband. It really did help Lisa, it did. Although we had a funny thing, she was reading on the plane, Finding the hero in your husband. And I looked at it I go, Lisa, I’ll you Finding the hero in your husband. And I put her hand on my bicep. I said, there’s a hero. And she goes, yeah, I think I’ll keep reading. If people don’t know me, I’m not like Craig Groeschel in great shape.
Juli
You’re a runner.
Gary (33:39.886)
I’m runner. Yeah, so she knew. It was a joke. But seriously, that is a great foundation, I think, for emotional connection. The wife kind of working on her own way of relating to her husband before she starts to work on her husband.
Juli
Yeah. Okay. So I want to make sure we get to this one dynamic that is so common in conversations about intimacy. And again, this is stereotyping, but stereotypes are there for a reason. In many, many marriages, the wife says, I don’t feel emotionally connected to you. I’m not interested in sex. And the husband says, the only way I can emotionally connect to you is if we have sex first.
And so they’re sort of a stalemate. And we get this, I get this question almost every time I speak at a marriage event, women saying, how do I help my husband understand how important it is for me to feel seen and valued and heard before we start to engage sexually?
Gary
I think we speak at the same churches. Lisa, I get the same questions. Let me go back to a little neuroscience to help wives understand what’s going on. A woman can have, and this is elementary to you, but we’ll bring it out in the open. A woman can have up to 10 times more oxytocin in her brain than a male. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide. They call it the cuddle chemical. It’s what creates feelings of bonding and warmth and loyalty and connection.
Gary (35:12.896)
And while that’s an extreme, a woman with a high level and a man of a low level to say it’s 10 times, it’s usually higher, which is why women tend to value relationships more, why they tend to bond with their kids more quickly than the husband’s might and whatnot, why they tend to be more relational. But there’s one time in a man’s experience when his level of oxytocin reaches that of his wife, and it’s immediately following a sexual encounter.
It floods his brain with oxytocin. Now the woman gets an oxytocin boost too, but here’s the thing. Let’s say her tank is at 80%. So then she goes to a hundred percent and it’s, that’s nice. Pat him on the back. But women imagine that your tank was at 20 % and all of sudden you have this experience with your spouse and now it’s at a hundred percent. And he says, wow. I mean, I, I love you so much. And it’s, I understand how it can be hurtful.
Gary
But it really is the way that God created a man’s brain. I mean, I just, I think that’s reality for her to know that. Now, it’s not helpful for a woman to have consensual unwanted sex on a regular basis. I mean, you said at times marriage involves sacrifice, but if it is always that where she’s feeling like no emotional needs are getting met and there’s these sexual expectations, that’s a really unhealthy situation.
But I just want women to understand the physiology, the neuroscience of what is going on with their husband, that he will literally probably feel closer to her and more emotionally connected to her immediately following that experience than at any other time. And I get why she might resent that, why she might wish he felt closer after she fixed the garbage disposal or talked about his feelings, but it’s really how God made us. Now, the downside of that, after that much oxytocin is released, we men often feel like we just have to go to sleep. As the wife say, great, you know, he’s emotionally connected, but then he’s gonna go to sleep. What good does that do me?
Juli (37:22.658)
He’ll have good dreams about me.
Gary
Yes! Well, but here’s where you’re looking at it as laying the foundation for intimacy at all levels. And again, Lisa said I could share this. We’re empty nesters and we’re both in our 60s. And we’ve chosen a lifestyle where I get tired a lot, Lisa gets tired a lot. So it impacts how long you’re intimate, but we’re both good with it. We are. I love to see the statistics on that 5% of couples have the same or similar libido. We’re one of those 5%, which I’m really grateful for. It works out great. But we had this trip to Florida earlier in the year. I was speaking at a church, so we went out earlier because it was still winter here in Colorado and we’d get warm. And for whatever reason, we ended up being intimate three out of four nights, which is, and maybe people say that’s them every week. It’s not for Lisa and I. It’s more like weekly, right? Not that people need to know. I’m just making the distinction.
I’m just going to say as a husband who already cherishes and adores his wife, the next day after three out of four days, I can’t tell you how connected I felt to her, how I wanted to put her first, how available I was to her. And I just thought all this stuff I talk about oxytocin, it works. I mean, it was, it was just, and I realized that that Lisa and are both disciplined.
Gary (38:51.128)
We want to be intimate because we know it does good things for the relationship. Even if I come home tired and I was out late speaking somewhere or whatnot, we realize our marriage needs a certain level of physical intimacy because it naturally provides what I want to be as a husband, a cherishing heart who will do anything for her, who will lay down his life for her. And I’m not talking about dying for her, but listening to her, finding ways to be kind to her, looking for gifts to buy for, I mean, it just.
I’m just telling the wives, it really does impact a man’s brain when she can get there. Now you’ve got so many programs. So what do you do if you feel like you’re just being used? That’s not healthy. If you feel like you’re being used, if it’s not mutually pleasurable, I’m just talking about not as this heavy obligation, but what really does happen. And I can say from personal experience as a man, it’s pretty powerful what God designed and what it does as far as connect us with our wives.
Juli
Thank you for sharing so vulnerably, and I know you’re right. I mean, I agree with you a hundred percent on that. What I’d love you for you to do is to articulate the other side of it though. I think, you know, women who listen to this podcast are hearing this message often of the importance of sex, the importance of that connection. I don’t know that men are hearing the importance of the emotional connection and the tenderness towards their wife and how that really makes a woman more interested in sex, honestly. I know women who will be like, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen my husband do is change a diaper with our kids or play with our kids or do dishes and say, hey, hun, I just want you to be able to rest.
Juli (40:47.892)
I’d love for you to encourage men in the same way you just encouraged women that they need to also realize what it is that really opens up the heart of their wife.
Gary
I do think men are hearing it. They may not be doing anything about it. Okay. But every man I know has heard that, that I’m supposed to do this, give my wife time, I’m supposed to be there with the kids, help with the load at home and whatnot. I don’t know a guy that hasn’t talked to me about that, trying to do it. Couples do get into the quid pro quo. So Gary, I’ve done that and she’s still not responding. And then the wife say, well, I’ve been intimate and he’s not responding.
And boy, quid pro quo really is not a good place.
Juli
No, it’s not.
Gary
I loved your writing is that we’re doing it out of reverence for God. We’re doing it out of reverence for the relationship. There is an element of sacrifice. But again, when I say that, I qualify it a hundred times. If you always feel like you’re sacrificing emotionally or always feel like you’re sacrificing sexually, you’re gonna get that martyr spirit, which poisons the relationship as well.
Gary (41:58.934)
Question is, so what do we do if men hear it and don’t do anything about it? I found, think, and again, nothing I say is going to work every time. I mean, you’ve counseled more people than I ever will know. so, you know, but there are things that are more likely to lead to success. And I think you work on other elements of the relationship to help them see it. And then I, I’ve often said to guys, look, somebody has to go first. You be the Christian. I talked to one guy to show that I really do challenge guys. I talked to one guy. He chose to do this for 11 months before his wife responded sexually. And she told me. This was the wife talking to me. first I said, he’s doing this just because he wants more sex. So it meant nothing to her.
Gary (42:57.856)
After 11 months, she said, I’m being a jerk. He’s changed. mean, this isn’t 11 days. I haven’t reciprocated. I’m not responding. And so I tell guys sometimes you got to be ready to go the long haul. Do you want to change the dynamics in your marriage? Then you might have to be a sacrificial Christian who is really loving out of reverence for God. And because you value your marriage and you value your kids’ home, and I can’t ever promise success.
But I can say you’re going to feel better about yourself when you’re doing everything that you need to do. But that is not to deny it’s not helpful to go to a counselor and say, I’ve been doing this for six months. It’s not working, because I also don’t want people to overextend themselves by sacrificing. And then they get to the martyr spirit again, which really just becomes a dead end for the marriage.
Juli
Yeah.
Gary
I mean, guys might not be responding, Juli. I do think it’s being said and I do think they’re hearing it. And I’m even getting to the point where I’m hearing guys push back saying, I’ve tried that. Now, when they say that, I think they’re trying it for a week. And I’ll tell any guy who’s listening that his wife’s going to see through that. He’s just doing this quid pro quo to get sex. That’s not going to work.
Juli
And honestly, I’m going to push back on that a little bit, and say even the guy that might be doing this for 11 months, if the end goal is I want my wife to be sexually responsive, it’s the wrong motivation and it’s the wrong goal. Because if we have the goal of I want to love my spouse well, I want them to feel safe with me. I want them to feel connected to me.
That’s different than I want them to give me sex or I want them to, you know, sit down, talk, whatever. It’s, so I think some of it’s reframing the goal for men. Like maybe the evidence that your wife is really beginning to trust you and open her heart to you is that she’s more sexually responsive, but maybe it has nothing to do with you. Maybe that part has to do with trauma from her past or, or even that sex physiologically is not satisfying or pleasurable or painful and they’ve got to address another issue. So that’s where the quid pro quo thinking is going to break down whether you say I’ll do this for three weeks or six months.
Gary
And if it is, if the intimate experience is unilateral, it’ll never work. I’ve talked with Lisa about this because we talked to other couples and she just says, well, Gary, you always make it worth my time. And so she never feels like it’s just I’m getting sex. It’s like we’re cherishing each other physically.
Juli
In the act.
Gary
It’s an entirely different dynamic than a guy trying to get a neat met. Juli, another thing I’ve found that can really help with emotional availability with your husband is just to pray for him, but not for God to fix him. That’s okay occasionally, but pray for God to help you understand him. God adores your husband. God saw when your husband was hurt or ignored or belittled or not cherished by his parents. And I believe in divine revelation.
I think God wants your husband to be loved by his wife. And I’ve done this with my own wife. God help me understand what she faced when she was growing up. Who is the woman I married? How can I be a healing redemptive presence in her life rather than maybe unaware adding to the pain she felt and the wrong sense that she’s not a cherished daughter or a cherished wife or that she doesn’t measure up. And I think when your heart cherishes your husband like that, he’s gonna sense it indirectly and that’s gonna help him open up.
Gary
Another fun thing is to work out together or do scary things together. John Gottman has said that if you can get the heartbeat up to 95 beats per minute, you’re more emotionally vulnerable. So go for a run if you’re into that, do the high wire course or something.
Gary (47:26.828)
But it’s just something about that elevated heartbeat helps a woman open up, it helps a man open up. And two of our friends, Terri and David Sumlin, do that for their marriage retreats, where that’s their focus. Let’s get the heartbeat up at 95 beats per minute, and then we can help open up a little bit.
Gary
Another thing I hear from a lot of husbands that will really help them open up emotionally, guys are dying for a thank you. And I know gets tedious because wives feel like, I’m waiting for a thank you. I’m doing all of this. I’m helping to bring money and I’m doing this. But I’ve had guys tell me that their wife said thank you once. He said, Gary, I could live on that thank you for two weeks. It’s how parched he felt. And I think the challenge is that men and women both do this. We take the status quo as the baseline, and we’re sensitive to the disappointments and we miss the blessings because they’ve just become the way it is.
Gary (48:25.186)
And sometimes I found the better the Christian husband is, the more the wife takes him for granted thinking, this is what every husband does. I’m telling them, trust me, talk to the last five couples in my office. That’s not what every husband does. And it’s just, it’s easy to feel that you’re working hard and you’re taken for granted and your wife just doesn’t see it. It had a funny experience. Lisa and I have been traveling together for decades now.
And I don’t know if you experienced this when you first started speaking. We would used to get put up in some, they call it fleabag hotels.
Juli
Yeah.
Gary
Like with literally a, you know, looking out into the parking lot. There was one, know, Lisa is so healthy and holistic. It had this shag carpet that was probably 50 years old. Lisa said, okay, rip off the bedspread because it looked like it had been there 40 years. Pull back the covers. She literally leapt from the bathroom onto the bed. She didn’t want her feet to touch the carpeting. But we’ve had amazing places. One time I got invited to speak in Hawaii. They put us in this, it’s 1500 square feet. Who knows what they pay. This is like, I’ll never measure up to this. And it was so big that one time Lisa called me, hey, where are you? I go, I’m in the room. I’m just, got to go around the corner.
And, and I have a friend who he’s not traveled hardly at all and they didn’t have a lot of money and a lot of time. Their vacations would be taking kids to sporting trips or whatnot. So they’d say it really cheap. Well, he had one business trip in San Francisco. He went to a nice hotel and told me his wife told him, man, I’m so grateful you took me here. This is amazing. Anything you want all weekend. I’m all yours because this is this is incredible. Well, Lisa’s never going to feel that way because we’ve been in some really nice places. So I think that’s just a mental mindset that I just want wives to know while I urge every husband to be grateful for his wife, not every husband does provide, especially I’m seeing a growing number that the wife is carrying 80 to 90 % of the financial burden. Not every husband is involved with the kids. Not every husband is emotionally available for his wife.
Gary (50:51.126)
So if you’ve said it 10 times before, still try to keep that thankful heart. It just is what opens them up. And the final thing I would say, and this is what I tell wives when I’m talking about affairs, wives are usually hypersensitive if they think their husband is around a really beautiful woman. And I would say unless the guy is really shallow and used to have one night stands, that’s probably not gonna do anything for him. We’re not usually that way. Some guys might, the playboy type, but probably most of the husbands that the wives who are listening to talk about, they’re solid Christian guy, that’s not it. Marlene Dietrich, the famous actress said, most men are more interested in a woman who’s interested in them than a woman who has a great pair of legs.
Juli
Mmm.
Gary (51:45.228)
And so the three things I tell wives that will lure a guy away, are the same three things that help build emotional connection in marriage. And they’re the three things that having children kill the fastest. It’s a smile, eye contact, and touching. When the husband comes home, is the wife smiling or is she like, you wouldn’t believe the day I had or here are the kids, I’m done, or you forgot to do this or that faucet’s still dripping and it’s driving me crazy.
And then eye contact, it’s easy to die because she’s thinking about the kids. they putting a fork in the socket? Have they left a mess here? She’s just not even looking at her husband. that eye contact gives some of that oxytocin. And then touching. How many wives have told me, and I get this, I’m being touched all day. Just leave me alone. Here, you touch the kids. Let me go away and not be touched for a while.
Gary
But to build emotional connection with your husband, if you could think about those three things, when do I smile? When I’m looking at him? Am I looking him in the eyes? Do I touch? And I’m not talking about sexual touch here. I’m just on his arm, on his knee when you’re in the car driving or whatnot. And I know some wives get said, then he’s going to want sexual intimacy. But that’s a whole different dynamic that you can deal with in a different way.
But those are three things that I think a woman can choose to help prime the pump for her husband to respond to her emotionally. Smile, eye contact, and touching.
Juli (53:24.43)
Now you see why Gary Thomas is a favorite guest to have around here on Java with Juli. I appreciate his stories and I’m so grateful for his wisdom. He really shares out of his own life as well. He’s not just an expert, but somebody who’s walking this road with us. And I hope this conversation has been helpful for you as a man or a woman. I think it’s one that married couples can listen to together and learn together. I really appreciate those three practical things that Gary shared.
Smile, give eye contact, and touch. Well, those sound so simple, right? But here’s the hard part. You’re probably going to have to go first. It’s gonna be so worth it. If this is gonna be difficult for you, ask God for his help. Bathe your marriage in prayer, and then just start taking those first simple steps and see what happens. Gary mentioned a book called Safe Haven Marriage: A Marriage You Can Come Home to by Arch Heart and Sharon May.
We’ll link to that in our show notes as well as to his book, A Lifelong Love, Discovering How Intimacy with God Breathes Passion into Your Marriage. And as always, you can find more resources at authenticintimacy.com. Thanks for listening and I look forward to having coffee with you next time for more Java with Juli.