With The Perrys - Guarding Your Heart in Marriage

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

The Bible tells us to guard our hearts right? Well, how often have you thought about how to apply the principle to your marriage relationship? There are temptations everywhere. From ex’s, to  co-workers, to pornography, even bitterness and entitlement can harden your heart towards your spouse. Let’s chat about how to keep our hearts soft towards God and each other.   Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yo, what's up? This is another episode of 30 Minutes with the Perrys. 30 Minutes with a Perry. You always got to break out a song. I actually need to stop singing flat and off-key. That's embarrassing to my Enneagram 3 vibes. So, you know, I need to get better at that. And you're actually a decent singer.

I can carry a tune. You can carry a tune. And people don't even know that. No. You should go ahead. bust one out for the people. I'll pass. Come on bad. No, that's that's cool. Like Jackie, she'd be walking around the house and she like straight like legit be hitting notes. I'm like, you can like sing if you actually like. No, I think if I got lessons, I could probably, I can

get away with some things. I could be like Drake. You know, Drake ain't hitting no runs and stuff like that. But he's, he's like in pitch all the time. God gave Jackie like 90 gifts. Straight up it down. Anywho. Me and Preston were watching. this series on Netflix, the series will go unnamed. But there was this part of the show where this guy who's married, him and his wife were going through some things. Some thing, things. Some stuff.

And, you know, it was causing tension and disconnection in the marriage. And while he was at work, one of his coworkers was kind of around him, like around his desk. And there was like this odd energy in the scene. Lurking, lurking, lurking. Yeah, it was this odd energy where they. kind of liked being around each other, but they weren't saying that. And like they were kind of like lingering and like never saying nothing like, you know, explicitly bogus.

But it was kind of like, oh, y'all need to stop that. And I paused and I told Preston, I said that right there is how people get caught up in all kinds of mess because they don't guard their heart in marriage. Because Jackie will pause a show in a minute. I have to get my idea out. from one scene and like preaching many sermon and then press play i gotta get it out i had to get that out like hey okay and so i was like man this would be a good podcast topic about how to guard your heart in marriage we haven't only seen it you know on tv we've seen it in real life as well

everybody yeah like there's there's there's so much opposition spiritually uh to the unity that God intends for two people to have. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, like, I don't know. Let's first say, what does it mean to guard your heart? Even the Bible says, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. I think I've messed that verse up.

Probably did. But the Bible tells us to guard ourselves. What is that just practically? What does that mean? Yeah, I think it means to do the necessary things that we need to not put ourselves in positions. where we would have to choose sin over righteousness. You know what I'm saying?

Because I think a lot of times, sin starts with us putting ourselves in a position where something might look enticing or might be tempting. And so it's like, man, you're not really guarding your heart if you go to a place where women are going to be all loosey-goosey when you've dealt with lust in the past. Yeah, it's like guarding your heart. as this. You know, if you know that you struggle with gluttony, guarding your heart would be like,

huh, I probably shouldn't go to Golden Corral today. Right. Or when a Chrissy's cream, like, ready sign, hot sign is on. Let me keep driving. You probably, yeah, you probably just got to keep driving and don't look right. Yeah. Like, you're not guarding your heart because you put yourself in a position to be tempted. Absolutely. Unnecessarily. Right. So a part of guard in your heart is self-awareness, knowing what's enticing, knowing what triggers you, knowing what could lead you astray from truth, the gospel God, your spouse, whatever, and moving accordingly. Yeah. Okay.

So now when we apply that to marriage, guarding your heart in marriage means never putting yourself in the position to sin against God and sin against your spouse, guarding yourself from whatever would break that commitment that you make. Yeah, yeah. that's good. I think also too, what guarding our hearts can look like is doing the best we can to not, to not always compare our spouses with other people. So that's a way to guard your heart? Yeah. And so like if your spouse falls short in this area, to not always look at men who excel where your spouse kind of fails at times. Oh, yeah. Because I think that kind of like, oh, you know such and such does this why you don't do this it's like no like that person that that's probably

excelling in the area probably didn't always excel in the area they they they were able to grow i think a part of that temptation to compare your spouse to another person is like covetousness a little bit where it's like you do x y and z wrong i think homeboy did or does x y and z right i wish you were homeboy or homeboy was you. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. And that literally is when you start going there, it starts to get a little bad because, you know why? What that does is it starts to make you discontent with the person you're married to.

Absolutely. And that all types of sin can come out of that. Yeah. And so, and I think the devil is so crafty. He works with our impatience and he works with the things that we covet, right? And the devil is the type of lame that would send the right person along that will give you the attention or will impress you in ways that your spouse doesn't and lead you away, lead your heart away from your spouse. When the actuality, it's just not fair, right? Because you don't know, like, this person that you're super impressed with, right?

You don't know what process they went through, you know what I'm saying? And you don't know them. Right. Let's be clear. I was watching, I told you about this while watching it. I watched this old episode of Oprah on YouTube. It's probably still on there. And she had a roundtable with men who had cheated on their wives.

That was the first episode. The second episode was a roundtable with women who were mistresses. And it was so interesting. I think I remember seeing something like that when I was little. Because she kept asking all these men, why did they cheat? And they would be like, you know, basically like the mistress, like every time I would come over, she would cook for me, she would listen to me. She wasn't, you know, you know, nagging and all of this. Like she basically gave him everything they wanted in their wife.

And the crazy thing, I was like, they're so deceived, though, because if they were to get in a relationship, relationship with these women and be around this woman, she would also become the same way as your wife because she's a human being. Like she's giving you all of this because y'all only seeing each other two hours a week. Right. You don't even know her. You know, like, you're not even committed to her. Like, she's only giving you a little bit. Yeah. And so to expect that your mistress will not also become just, I don't know, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Basically what you're trying to say is like our impatience and our lack of content. makes us not content in who.

Delusional. Delusional and not content in who we're with. And so we find what we're missing in other people not realizing that if we get into relationship with this other person, they're going to feel less in a whole different of ways. The grass ain't never greener. The grass ain't never greener on the other side. But the devil in our sinfulness would like to convince us that it is because we're

impatient and we don't want to grow up with the people that we're with. Hello. We don't want to work. I get it though. Like obedience is hard. I think another way to guard your heart. Well, I'll say this. I think in light of the whole covetousness piece and the discontentment is being careful

even when it comes to social media. Yeah. Like who you follow. Absolutely. Because I think that could breed some like jealousy and all types of stuff where you see like, you know, this dude taking this wife out on all these trips and got roses on the bed, which is a hot mess anyway, because who's going to be? clean it up getting her chocolate and you like he don't never take me on trips he don't

never put roses on my bed he don't never but it's like but he paying your bills and he he rubs your back and he takes care of your children and he's faithful at church like right he may not be able to be uber romantic but he's responsible yeah you know what i'm saying like so like there's always something good that covetousness will keep you from actually seeing yeah that's really good That's really good. I think social media is a really big piece, especially when it comes to men, because I think men, we tend,

not always, but typically we tend to be very visual people. And so a lot of times we can even grow a discontent of our wives seeing, you know, different women's body types and different women, you know, looking a certain way. And so, like, I think that sometimes, like you said, we have to really watch who we follow on social media because it can become a thing. But also, too, I think one thing that can help us guard our hearts in marriage is dealing with the trauma of our past. Thanks fine.

I say dealing with the trauma of our past because I think what happens is sometimes we can get into marriage and not dealt with the trauma of our past. I think what happens is when we get married, this person who becomes the closest person to us has the power to affect us in ways that nobody in the world can, right? You're more vulnerable in this relationship than any other relationship in the world. And so I think a lot of times with men and women, right, is that the moment our spouses disappoint us, it triggers like this lifelong trauma that we had even before we got in this marriage. and we seek outside sources to satisfy us instead of, no, dealing with it, no, like your wife disappointed you

or your husband disappointed you, not because what they did to you was so detrimental is that you never dealt with a little hurt boy. My God. In you. My God. You never dealt with that little hurt girl in you. Yeah, yeah. And so you came into marriage with all this bondage.

Yeah. And the moment they disappointed you, it felt like it felt like the world crashed. The world crashed. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And I've seen a lot of men do that. You know, when that women reject them, it's like, you know, what you have done is you have associated this rejection with all of your mommy hurt. And so what you do, you go look and find a woman that won't reject you in the same way that you're my God.

Instead of dealing with your trauma and say, man, your rejection of me makes me feel like when my mom abandoned me, right? And instead of dealing with that and becoming a whole person, you want to go outside your marriage. Yeah. I mean, that is a way to guard your heart is to trace the feeling to its source. Absolutely. Right. So one of my triggers with you is to feel like if you, I don't know, if you say, Jackie, can you go do X, Y and Z? if it feels like you are trying to control me

I will always resist it which will look like or be a form of like being unsubmissive right and what somebody can say oh she's just a rebellious woman I've had to trace back to being abused and not wanting to feel like a man was trying to control me right and so now I have to go I have to like go back to that place and say okay God

this is this is the wound this is some pain mix with some sin, I need to help you, help me to not like feel like pressing this trying to control me when really he's just asking me, can I close the refrigerator door? Because it's a difference between your wife deeply wounding you and your wife triggering wounds that you've never dealt with. Yes. It's a difference.

Yikes. Wow, whoa. It's a difference. Truth bomb. And so. And so Mike drop. Right. It's a difference.

And so what I'm not saying is that she didn't sin against you. I'm not saying that she didn't hurt you in some type of way of form of fashion. What I am saying is how deeply you were affected points to something way deeper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that unheeled version of yourself that you've never dealt with. And so you're looking for a woman that will not disappoint you in the same way or who won't reject you in the same way, who will rub your back when your wife said no. And it's like, no, bro, your wife ain't really the problem. You're the problem.

In an earlier episode, we had a real small banter about fragility. And this isn't to boo-boo on men. What's about to boo-boo on men? I just think we need to address the emotional fragility of men because I see adultery on the part of a man as a weakness. you are a weak man if you cannot withstand rejection to the point that you are willing to betray your spouse your family and your God just to be coddled that's a problem to me well you disagree that's weak uh 50 50 I disagree with you okay what's the other 50 so I think I don't I don't

I don't think okay let me say this I'm not saying it's not a form of weakness. I just think that it's deeper than that. Of course it is. Right. And what I mean is I think a word that kind of fits better with me in my mind is wounded. A person who is wounded, hear me out, a person who is wounded and a person who is never given the tools to learn how to deal with their wounds. Now, I do think that the point of you feeling like you have to go outside of your marriage to cheat on somebody. It's trash, which is weak. But I'm saying the motive in which...

No, it is a weakness because you are unable to withstand temptation. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's a weakness. Okay, now I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying. Yes. So you are so fragile to the point that because she said, no, you cannot withstand, you can't endure it.

You can't, you can't, you can't handle it. Your identity is breaks apart. So it's like, oh, I got to go out and do this so I can feel like a man again. That's not manhood. That's little boy behavior. That's little boy behavior. Yeah. And I feel like, I feel like we got to just call it for what it is.

And I understand that the context is that a lot of men have not been disciples or fathered to be actual men. Like even C.S. Lewis said how like people, humans, because they have not, because they always give in to temptation, it really reveals how weak and how fragile they actually are versus Jesus who endured temptation for 33 years and never once submitted to it. That's actual manhood. Yeah.

That's actual strength. Absolutely. And so I'm done boo-boing on men, but I just, I'm just saying. Yeah, I do think that it is weakness, you know what I'm saying? Which, which we're all kind of born weak, right? And we're born loving the things that God hates and hating the things that God loves. I think the problem comes in when men, when society teaches us that a real man is not rejected by women, right? So I think a lot of that plays into society teaching men that, you know, a woman shouldn't reject you.

A woman should want you all the time and yada, yada, yada. and so when your wife rejects you, you feel like she's rejected your whole being, but she's just tired. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? She's just tired, bro. Raising your kids.

Her back just hurt, you know what I'm saying? And so we want to go outside, you know, our marriage because, yeah, we, yeah. I agree. It's weakness. I think on the other end, I appreciate that. I think on the other end, though, me and pressing we're talking about this. It's not to say that women don't commit adultery because they do. I was just about to ask you that.

But. I'm not letting y'all. the hook. Don't. But I do think that from my experience, women are less likely to cheat on a man because of their hurt. But what I do see is that they will begin to withhold their time and emotional energy as a response. So if a woman feels rejected, if a woman feels unsafe, if a woman is frustrated, she most likely will not go entertain a man or pull up a porn pornography video and some do so this isn't like a monolith but it is what i've seen and experience is that you know you're just not going to get a lot of energy for me and so if i have

a job i'm gonna put a lot of my energy into that job if i know how to make money i'm put a lot of my energy and not committing adultery but cheating on your husband with your work potentially yeah my and but even not even my work just my time and my emotional availability i'll become more emotionally available to my friendships and not you and so i think that's one way for a woman to kind of numb herself is to simply just be like, oh, that's what we're doing? Cool. So how can a woman guard her heart to prevent that? One, you got to notice when it's happening.

Like, because some of it is a, is a coping mechanism that you might be used to so you don't even know when it's happening. You know, and so I think you have to become aware of yourself where it's like, oh, I'm starting to withdraw. So, like, identifying that. And then immediately going to the father for help God, I feel myself wanting to close myself from my husband out of fear. Because that's what's under it is I don't want to be hurt. So I need to close off myself so you can't wound me again. But what happens is as I close off myself so I don't get wounded, I'll also close off myself from the ability to love you. And so I can't guard myself and love you at the same time, which is mad frustrating.

I hope this question makes sense. Do you think there is, what are the, what are the practical implications we can, we can do in each other's lives to help each other. As spouses? Yeah, spouses to help each other guard. Like, so for example, if you know that your husband, I don't think it's a woman's job to coddle their husband in a way that would. Comfort, yes. Cottle, no. comfort, not coddle, right?

She shouldn't do the necessary things in her marriage, so her husband wouldn't cheat. That shouldn't be her burden, right? He should go to God with that, right? And have a conviction from God. But do you think that there is a concern that we should have was saying, man, I shouldn't just want my husband to guard his heart around other women

or being tempted around other women? Is it something that I can do as a woman that can assist him and help him? Or do you think it solely falls on us to guard our own hearts in marriage? Because a lot of men that I've talked to have said things along the lines of like, yeah, I know it's my own sin when I look at this woman or when I fantasize about this woman, but I feel like when my wife is having sex with me or when my wife is not rejecting me so much, it's not as much of a temptation.

Yeah, I think we're all continual proud of. of nature and nurture. It is our nature to sin. It is our nature to go against God's design and act out in all kinds of ways. Yet at the same time, God has given us a new nature where we are supposed to resist that and put it to death, right? But we also are products of nurture, which is how we were raised, the culture we grew up in, the neighborhood we had, the family line that we come in. And this nurture even exists in marriage. Am I nurturing my husband in such a way that? leads him or helps him to choose God or my nurturing my husband in such a way where I'm continually sending against him so he's sending against me in response. And so I do think it's both.

That's really good. It's both. That's really good because a lot of men and I think I think men are much more complex individuals than society gives us credit for. Sure. You're made an image girl. Right, right. Because they will paint this picture. I think I kind of said this on another podcast. They will paint this picture that we're just sexual beings. But it's like, no, like, A man just, a man wants to be, feel nurtured and love and affection too, you know what I'm saying. And a woman does too. Because that's, that's getting to what the whole point is, is that we are really, really, really, really needy people. Yes.

All of us. As human beings, we are, we are needy. We want love. We want comfort. We want affection. We want security. Yeah. And what happens is, like you said earlier, is because I've given you myself and, you

marriage the pain hurts that much deeper yeah and so i'm tempted to act out in crazier ways because of that that vulnerability but i think at the end of all of this or at the bottom of all of this is that we need to develop a reverence and a fear from god because i think sometimes we could like land the plane on love your spouse so that your spouse will love you back or honor your spouse which is all good and well yeah but i have to love god more than i love you Yeah. Because if I don't love God more than I love you, what happens when I stop loving you? Yeah.

I'm more tempted to sin against God. And so there has to be some inner integrity so that I'm guarding my heart in private. Like, I'm guarding my heart in ways that you will never know or never see because I'm first and foremost honoring the Lord. And this is the reason why, you know, I don't know if this is getting a little off topic of guarding our hearts, but this is the reason why women and men of God, please do not be tempted to fall in love with somebody. who does not love Jesus because when that love for you kind of fades, they have no other love to fall on. No strength. No strength to fall on. And so that's one way in which we can guard our hearts as Christians.

We have a consistent standard to look to. I don't hurt you simply because, you know, I love you. I don't hurt you because I have a moral standard to look to. right and even when I do hurt you I'm not just affected because you're affected I'm affected because God is affected that I hurt his image bear you know what I'm saying and so it's just

that's it's a more weight you know what I'm saying on it it takes some mind renewal but when you start to trace the way you treat your spouse to your relationship with God it's a game changer yeah because then you see oh the way I treat my spouse literally is an outworking of what I believe about God who and so like yes accountability thumbs up yes uh putting you know the little control things on

on your computer do that yes like going to marriage retreats and all the things I think all of that helps but it will only help in so far as you love God yeah and so like a part of the whole thing is let me start to stir up my affections for God so that I'm really, really like, out here walking in holiness at all time. Because in guarding your heart, you can put all of those parameters in place. Yeah. But if you don't, if you don't. If your heart ain't change, you're going to do the same thing.

Right. You're going to find hurdles to, you know, you're going to jump over those hurdles. You're going to jump over those, you know, those things. And so God has to be the standard. If God is not the standard of what we get our morality and our moral. standard from like it's going to be so hard to guard your heart in marriage because we don't have a we don't have a moral standard of goodness and so we have to consistently look towards the one who is good and we have to be affected by the things that affect his heart if we if we're not affected yeah it's going to be

really hard to guard our hearts and marriage okay let me say this and then we could close i i think um a really important part okay so psalms one says uh blessed of those who walk not in the counsel of the wicked nor sit in the seat of scoffers or stand in the way of sinners and i i mentioned that song because who we do life with mainly our friends like that is a way to guard our heart too and so that's really good how would you like how would you say your male friend like what are okay i'll say so good are there particular male friendships that you will not engage with yes And particular male friendships that you will engage with that have served you in your marriage. I'm so glad that you asked this question, wife.

You're welcome. Because I was just having a conversation with the guy, my friend yesterday about this. And we were on the phone and we was talking about his wife. And he said something and I kind of corrected him. I don't want to say what he said or whatever. But I corrected him. And he was like, man, I'm so glad you, my friend. he was like because

I used to have friends who would just like let me just talk about my wife and not giving me a different perspective but like show me the things in my heart that I need to change you know what I'm saying

and he does the same thing for me and I have like six or seven good male friends that do that for me you know Ezekiel like I have like you know and so I don't even

dudes who who have a certain way of thinking and due to Can I say something you told me a long time ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When we were in Chicago, you were talking to, we were talking about somebody

and you was like, you know why I can't rock with him? And I was like, why? And you were like, because he never talks about his wife. Yes. He never honors his wife. Absolutely. And I was like, huh? That's what I was just about to say.

Yeah. Even how, like when I first became a Christian and I first started to go in Christian circles, right? And I started to be around popular Christians, non-popular Christians, meeting people a lot. I started to notice that the men who were more, who were the most emotionally healthy were the people who celebrated their wives and talked about their wives in such an honoring way, our honoring way. And the men who didn't, I sought to see red flags that said, man, maybe you won't be beneficial for me as a close friend. And you remember that person is divorced now. Yes. And so there is a type of man now that I become cool with faster when they have a deep reverence for God and a deep honoring for their wife that lets me, that lets me know that man, if I, if I.

I become friends with this dude, he's going to encourage me to honor and love my wife, right? And so it's been times where I've been around men like that and I have left convicted to be a better husband and to flee temptation, right, by being around them. You know what I'm saying? That was one of the things that, you know, when we had dinner with a, not the name dropped, Kirk Franklin. Oh, yeah, the way he talked about his wife. My goodness. Yeah. People were like, oh, you know, like, well, you got to meet Kurt Franklin.

You know what I'm saying? He literally talked about Tammy. No, like literally. He didn't talk about none of his hits. He didn't talk about none of his, his Grammys. He just talked about how he loved his wife. And it was encouraging for me as a young man to see an older man still in love with his wife. You know what I'm saying?

And not only did he talk about his wife, but he talked about the leadership that he had to be under. You know what I'm saying? For years that helped him be content and to help him grow. grow and to help them be stretched in order to grow in a certain, you know, space with his wife over the course of years. And so, yeah, that's a great question because I think who we surround ourselves around will help us guard our hearts and help us honor our spouses in a way that can, that can help us have longevity in our marriage. Yeah, and I think the same for women. I think women have to be mindful and

discerning about being in friendship with and having conversations with people that is also equally honoring. Yeah. Because I do think it's a temptation. And some of it is needed. Some of it is needed to say, hey, homie is frustrating me in this way. But you need to have a friend who will help you to not just land on the frustration, but also moving towards how to serve and pray for and help your husband in light of the

way he's frustrating you. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? because I think conversations with women can be real specific and therefore highly critical. And so you don't want to get in the habit of always criticizing your spouse just because it doesn't serve you in the long run. And so I do think I think friendships are hugely important in how we guard ourselves because there's this one couple we knew. The wife is just, you know, doing a lot, you know, just showing out on social media, you know, showing skin and doing a lot. and just being, you know, highly disrespectful to her husband.

And I said, I wonder what kind of friend she has. And then I found out the friend she has and I said that makes sense. Because I knew that that individual was somebody that was gassing that behavior and not putting water on it. And saying, nah, sis, like, don't sin against your spouse even in the way you speak. Yeah. And if a man doesn't have men in their life who will consistently challenge them. when they start to complain about their wives who try to complain about what their wives are not doing

and never have a friend to say, man, maybe you've been a little bit domineering right here. Maybe you need to stop being as controlling. Oh, bro, you know, like, you need to be more patient. It'd be real hard for us to not, you know, to not guard our hearts when someone comes around and offers us all the things that, you know, that we love and we want

when we think the whole issue is our wives and not us, you know what I'm saying? And so, yeah. What's that Golden Girl song? No, I don't know the Golden Girl. I don't know that song, but I do know. You got a friend in me. You got a friend in me. Wow.

Bye. That wasn't a note. No. It wasn't. You'd be trying to play me. Peace. 30 Minutes with the Perry's is a production of Ivy Media podcast. edited by Angie Elkins

Video recording and audio production by Kim Powell Artwork by Hop and Music by Swoop Join us on Patreon for early access to With the Perry's episodes And other exclusives You got two options You can go to wwwpatriotcom Or just go on head scroll

You'll find the link in our show notes We Are The Perrys Thank y'all for listening Now go with God